Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistle Stop Cafe: Novel vs. Movie Essays

Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistle Stop Cafe: Novel vs. Movie â€Å"I may be sitting at the Rose Terrace Nursing Home, but in my mind I’m over at the Whistle Stop Cafe having a plate of Fried Green Tomatoes† (Flagg ). Both the novel and the movie received a number of great reviews and honors. However, the two vary greatly in content. The novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, brings the reader a much more detailed and very different story compared to the movie. For example, the character Vesta Adcock as portrayed in the novel is a citizen of Whistle Stop. Flagg sees Vesta as having church meetings and socials at her home and also as being the president of the drama club. â€Å"... Mrs. Vesta Acock, this little bird-breasted woman... who’s from Whistle Stop, came in wearing her fox furs and her diamond dinner rings† (Flagg 27). However, in the movie, Mrs. Adcock’s character changes completely. She does not play a woman from Whistle Stop, but Ed Couch’s aunt. The film shows her as a grouchy old woman residing in the Rose Hills Nursing Home Also, in the novel Flagg describes Buddy Threadgoode’s lover as Eva, the town harlot and proprietor of â€Å"The Wagon Wheel River and Fishing Club†. â€Å"...she had slept with a lot of men..., but [Buddy] didn’t care. Eva was as easy with her body as she was with every thing else.... The first time she took [Buddy] to bed, she made him feel like a man† (Flagg 94). Although the movie shows Buddy in love with the most admired woman in Whistle Stop, Ruth Jamison, the film shows Buddy walking with Ruth by the river. His eyes light up when he sees her and he cares about her greatly. In fact, he was trying to retrieve Ruth’s hat when the train killed him. Ninny Threadgoode says in the movie, â€Å"...his heart belonged to Ruth Jamison.† In addition, in the novel, Evelyn, who feels her life has become an endless battlefield, mainly because of her severe self-conscienceness, invented a person she used to give her courage in times she felt belittled. When someone would make her feel worthless Evelyn would think about Towanda and all the super hero battles she would fight if she really were Towanda. â€Å"Evelyn had even made up a secret code name for herself... a name feared around the world: TOWANDA THE AVENGER!† (Flagg 238). On the other hand in the movie, the unrefined and untamed Idgie Threadgoode thinks up Towanda. Evelyn uses... ...st scattered to the wind.† She does not find her house, although her new friend comforts her. In the movie, Ninny says,â€Å" Hey Evelyn, somebody stole my house. It was right here when I left.† Evelyn, who has fallen in love with Ninny, takes Ninny to her house and makes a home for her there. However, in the novel, Ninny Threadgoode goes back to her home in Whistle Stop, a growing city. There has been a lot of changes in the town, and all of Ninny’s memories have become rundown issuers. Despite the changes she returns to her house. Shortly after she returns, she dies a peaceful death in her sleep. â€Å"She wasn’t sick...she died in her sleep† (Flagg 378). Indeed, the movie and the novel hold many differences. Characters have changed, been eliminated, events have been left out, and relationships differed. Despite the changes, the film still managed to live up to the standards the book set. â€Å"Fried Green Tomatoes is a thorouly enjoyable move...,† says James Berardinelli quoted from the internet. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1987, this novel has tons of material which changed in the screenplay. However, both works offer dynamic characters, an interesting plot, and charming dialogue.