Jessica Tandy makes the quieter exchanges matter, giving older women strength without denying their vulnerability. We value that patience, especially in Fried Green Tomatoes, where her scenes with Kathy Bates earn the film much of its warmth.
Fi1m perspective
In Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Jessica Tandy’s Ninny Threadgoode spends time with Kathy Bates’s Evelyn Couch, and we want to stay with them. Tandy gives the smaller exchanges enough weight that the friendship can hold our attention without a romance taking charge. We were moved by their scenes together because both actors make the simple business of keeping someone company feel important. We recommend the film for that warmth, with reservations about how cautiously it treats the lives it celebrates.
That kind of substantial screen opportunity came late. Tandy originated Blanche DuBois in the Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), but her film work remained largely in supporting roles before the 1980s resurgence. Lydia Brenner in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) belongs to that supporting period; Daisy Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy (1989) marks the late breakthrough. Her long stage collaboration with Hume Cronyn included two-handers exploring ageing, a useful context for an actor whose quieter work can make the person opposite seem worth listening to.
We do not think warmth excuses everything in Fried Green Tomatoes. Fannie Flagg and Carol Sobieski’s screenplay understands the value of companionship, but remains too cautious about the lives it celebrates. The actors give us a reason to care about these women, even when we wish the writing would take more chances. Tandy’s strength is that she can suggest vulnerability without making a character seem helpless, and the film benefits from having her in its ensemble.
The late films are the sensible place to begin, rather than working backwards through the smaller parts. Driving Miss Daisy gives particular space to her sensitivity to ageing and change; her final film role was Beryl Peoples in Nobody’s Fool (1994). For us, though, the first stop is Fried Green Tomatoes. Go for Tandy and Bates, and allow for a script less adventurous than the friendship deserves.
Biography
Jessica Tandy was an English-American actress. Born Jessie Alice Tandy in London on 7 June 1909, she began her stage career in Britain in the 1920s and appeared in early British films.
She moved to the United States after her first marriage ended and married actor Hume Cronyn in 1942; the pair frequently performed together. Tandy won a Tony Award for creating Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and another for The Gin Game (1977).
In later years she received the Academy Award for Best Actress for Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ninny Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She died in Easton, Connecticut, on 11 September 1994.
