Jon Avnet is worth watching when he gives actors room to make familiar stories convincing. His warmth can be persuasive, but his preference for reassurance sometimes makes the difficult questions too easy to put aside.
Fi1m perspective
A woman listens to another woman’s life and begins to reconsider her own in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). Avnet gives the listener enough importance that we care about her, rather than simply waiting for the story to return to the past. We were moved by that attention: someone hearing a story is allowed to matter as much as the people in it. Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy make the warmth persuasive. We recommend the film for his handling of the performers, with reservations about how insistently it reassures.
He came to directing through producing, with Risky Business (1983) preceding the television film Between Two Women (1986). Fried Green Tomatoes was his feature debut. Up Close & Personal (1996), with Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer, continued a career in which established actors have been central. Later work attracted complaints about formula and pacing, notably 88 Minutes (2007). That criticism points to a weakness already present in the film we recommend: the lessons in Fried Green Tomatoes arrive much as expected.
The caution is most apparent in the attachment between the women played by Masterson and Parker. They give it a depth that the film’s broad account of friendship does not quite acknowledge. We do not need a declaration, but Avnet’s discretion about sexuality feels evasive in a film that asks us to applaud its women for refusing to conform. The actors make us believe in the attachment, while the direction seems reluctant to let it trouble the reassuring story around them.
For us, that is a substantial reservation, though it does not make the pleasure of these performances any less real. Avnet gives the women enough attention for their need to change to hold our interest through the predictable plotting. There is nothing wrong with wanting a warm story, and this one earns enough of its sentiment to be worth an evening. Start with Fried Green Tomatoes for Bates and Tandy; do not expect the storytelling to take many risks.
Biography
Jon Avnet is an American director, writer and producer. He began his career in off-Broadway theatre before receiving a directing fellowship at the American Film Institute. In 1977 he co-founded Tisch/Avnet Productions with Steve Tisch; the partnership produced Risky Business (1983).
Avnet made his feature directorial debut with Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), which he also produced. He has since directed The War (1994), Up Close & Personal (1996), Red Corner (1997) and Righteous Kill (2008), and produced The Mighty Ducks (1992), its sequels, George of the Jungle (1997) and Black Swan (2010, executive producer). His work has received Academy Award, Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony nominations.
