Richard and Priscilla Parker are an ordinary suburban couple whose lives are invaded and rocked by their hedonistic, secretive new neighbors, Eddy and Kay Otis.

Amidst her own personality crisis, southern housewife Evelyn Couch meets Ninny, an outgoing old woman who tells her the story of Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, two young women who experienced hardships and love in Whistle Stop, Alabama in the 1920s.