Review of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Introduction

Fried Green Tomatoes is one of those early 90`s films that sought to add some much needed class to the `tear jerker` genre and for that it is worth of respect. The film (often unjustly branded a `woman`s film`) tracks the up and downs of 4 southern women over 2 intersected time periods (30`s and 90`s).

Whilst the film does have an unpleasant tendency towards over sentimentality and `forced` moments it manages to carry just enough comedy and sole to lift the film from languishing in self pity.

Video

Video is very good for the age (1991) and suffers from little in the way of nastys throughout the film. The sandy tones of the 1930`s Alabama sets are well encoded and a joy to watch.
The video does nothing to detract from some of the lovely visuals the film has to offer.

The film is presented in 2.20:1 anamorphic.

The menus are simple and functional but do look the part.

Audio

Audio is nothing special offering a pro-logic sound track. Music and voices are clear and there is little use of the surrounds from anything more then ambient effect.

There are also a few `pops` present at various points but they are not severe enough to detract from the film.

Features

For a film that was so well received at its release the extras show a suspicious absence.

What we do get however is a trailer that, surprisingly, has the redeeming feature of being anamorphic.

Conclusion

Whilst missing a little `something` that would raise the film to that of exceptional it still manages to be good entertainment even ten years after its release.

It is one of those films that almost everybody must have seen by now but if you have not you could do a lot worse then get hold of this DVD.
It`s only a shame that they could not have put more effort into sourcing some worthy extras for a DVD release.