Jessica Tandy makes listening to an older woman tell a story a pleasure in itself. We rate her warmth and precision, particularly when a film's determination to improve us might otherwise make for a rather tiring evening.
Fi1m perspective
In Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Jessica Tandy makes Ninny Threadgoode's storytelling worth stopping for. The film needs us to care about listening, and her warmth makes that seem a reasonable demand. We enjoyed Ninny's company more than the plot; Tandy made us want to keep listening. She is particularly valuable when earnest writing threatens to become oppressive. Here, she gives us a person to enjoy spending time with, which makes the instruction in self-belief considerably easier to accept.
Her film career was slow to make room for her. She originated Blanche DuBois in the Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), but her screen work was largely in supporting parts for decades. Lydia Brenner in The Birds (1963) belongs to that stretch. The later prominence of Cocoon (1985), with frequent acting partner Hume Cronyn, and her lead as Daisy Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy (1989) brought older women nearer the centre of her screen work. Warmth and intelligence were qualities she could give these characters without treating age as their only interesting feature.
In Jon Avnet's Fried Green Tomatoes, that usefulness is especially clear beside Kathy Bates. Bates makes Evelyn's transformation worth following, while Tandy keeps the earnestness from weighing the film down. Mary Stuart Masterson's Idgie and Mary-Louise Parker's Ruth give the earlier strand its emotional pull; Tandy makes the storytelling matter as well. Her precision is easy to overlook because the result feels so companionable. We never feel obliged to admire Ninny simply for being there: Tandy gives us a reason to take an interest in what she has to say.
Tandy's persuasiveness is also a reason to be careful about the films around her. Fried Green Tomatoes remains predictably plotted and cautious about sexuality, however much pleasure its cast gives us. Her performance makes the sentiment worth accepting, but it cannot settle those reservations. Choose it for an evening of sympathetic company; do not expect Ninny to cure the screenplay.
Biography
Jessica Tandy was an English-American stage and film actress. Born Jessie Alice Tandy in London on 7 June 1909, she began her career on the London stage in the 1920s and appeared in British films before moving to New York. She was married first to actor Jack Hawkins and later to Canadian actor Hume Cronyn, with whom she frequently performed on stage and screen.
Tandy is known for her Tony Award-winning performance as Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and for film roles including Lydia Brenner in The Birds (1963), Alma Finley in Cocoon (1985), Daisy Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and Ninny Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She received the Academy Award for Best Actress for Driving Miss Daisy and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Fried Green Tomatoes. She died in Easton, Connecticut, on 11 September 1994.
