FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (1991) – Thomas Newman – Soundtrack Score Suite

One of the ultimate tearjerkers ever to be put to screen, Fried Green Tomatoes is a story told in flashback, set in both the 1990’s and 1930’s and addressing common issues in both periods. The 1930’s setting is the attractive one, and the reason Fannie Flag’s book (“Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe”) was put to screen by Universal and director Jon Avnet. Two young women operate a cafe in a small Alabama town in the ’30’s, where things are pretty progressive. Whites and blacks have civil relations, and the rednecks that roll down the main street waving guns in the air are shunned as being the village idiots. But complexity exists in the cafe, for there are lesbian undertones to the relationship between its two operators. There’s a murder mystery in the past and the salvaging of another troubled woman in the future setting, and one of the film’s weaknesses is its inability to switch between times with ease. For women especially, the film will send you to the box of tissues repeatedly, and some have criticized the film for trying too hard for a melodramatic punch. Whether that’s true or not, one fabulous element of the film is Thomas Newman’s score. While already an established name, Newman was still a few years away from his mainstream discovery and handful of Academy Award nominations. It also happened to come before Newman surprised orchestral film fans with his masterful symphonic scores of 1993 and 1994, and well before he returned to his experimental roots …