I Rewatched ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ & Found My Perimenopausal Icon

“Strong Southern women” is basically a Hollywood movie genre at this point: Steel Magnolias, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood… I could keep going. But one holds a special place in my heart, and that’s Fried Green Tomatoes. There are a lot of reasons — it’s funny; it’s a tear-jerker; it was filmed minutes from the house where I grew up; and it’s a romantic (if sad) Southern queer love story. But standing on the edge of middle age, I rewatched it and found a new reason to love it: Evelyn Couch is kind of a perimenopausal icon.

If you’ve never seen Fried Green Tomatoes (or you haven’t seen it in a couple of decades), it’s really two stories. We start off in the “present day” — 1991, which now feels about as far away as the moon landing — with Evelyn, played by the iconic Kathy Bates. A somewhat meek woman in her late 40s, she’s visiting her husband’s mean-as-a-snake Aunt Vesta in a nursing home when she meets Mrs. Threadgoode, played by Jessica Tandy.

Mrs. Threadgoode starts telling Evelyn stories about her beloved hometown, Whistle Stop, and the two women who ran the cafe there, Ruth and Edgie. On successive visits, Evelyn starts seeking out Mrs. Threadgoode to hear more about the women.

Now, Idgie and Ruth are great characters. And considering it’s a movie made in 1991, based on a book published in 1987, set partially in the 1920s, it’s pretty amazing just how crystal clear it is that they are queer women in a committed, long-term relationship. (While they don’t exactly spell it out, this food fight scene really tells you everything you need to know.) It’s a great reminder that, despite what some clowns at school board meetings would insist, there have always been queer people in the rural South.

But what caught me on this rewatch was Evelyn.

When we meet her, Evelyn is a bit of a mess. Her husband ignores her in favor of eating dinner in front of the TV while watching baseball. Random young people are downright mean to her at the grocery store. Her kid is out of the house, and she’s going to endless meetings and classes, trying to revive her marriage and figure out what she’s supposed to be doing with her life.

These classes provide some of the funniest moments in the movie. At one point, a seminar leader tells her they’re all gonna take off their underwear and use hand mirrors to examine their vulvas. Evelyn literally falls out of her chair in shock and horror. Also, the friend she’s attending all these classes with is the voice of Doug’s Patty Mayonnaise.

It’s a source of comedy that Evelyn is such a mess, but the movie isn’t mean or cruel about it. If anything, it’s reassuring. At one point, she breaks down crying to Mrs. Threadgoode and then sums up the problem of midlife pretty much perfectly: “I’m too old to be young, and I’m too young to be old.”

Whew, Evelyn.

Who among us hasn’t said some version of that exact thing to a friend? It’s a moment everybody goes through sooner or later, in one way or another.

It’s Mrs. Threadgoode who sorts her out. And not just with her stories about Ruth and Idgie. She’s the person who actually tells Evelyn that she’s probably going through menopause (even if she calls it “the change of life”) and tells her to get on hormones. Maybe we all stumble into a Mrs. Threadgoode on our journey into middle age.

Eventually, Evelyn gets unstuck. She starts exercising, she starts telling her husband what she wants, and she gets a job. Granted, the process is a little chaotic. At one point, her husband walks into their house and discovers Evelyn knocking out a wall with a sledgehammer. A few scenes later, her husband walks into their house and discovers that Evelyn is rebuilding the wall. But that’s relatable, too! Middle age is messy. It takes a while to figure out what’s wrong with your life and what would fix it. Figuring out what you want to do with the rest of your life is a whole process.

Admittedly, as a part of that messy process, Evelyn does have a fit of menopausal rage and totals some girl’s car in the Winn-Dixie parking lot after the girl cuts her off for a parking spot. Evelyn cackles and screams with joy the entire time she’s absolutely wrecking this little red convertible. It’s absolutely wild and unhinged behavior… and it’s cathartic to watch. I now understand why my mom cackled at the line, “Face it, girls — I’m older, and I have more insurance.” Amen to that, Evelyn.

This article was originally published on scarymommy.com.