Green Card

I'm normally not too much a fan of Gérard Depardieu, at least not when he plays a role in a movie that isn't French. But this time I was willing to make an exception and the main reason for that is because I was interested in the subject of fake marriages in order to be able to stay in the country permanently. It's a problem that is all too known known over here as well and I couldn't think of any other romantic movie that dared to use this subject. That's why I was curious about it.

George Fauré is a French citizen who has been offered a job in the U.S.A., but before he can start working, he'll need a work permit. Since it's very difficult for him to get one, the easiest way is to marry an American woman. Brontë Parrish loves plants and has dedicated her entire life to them. Now she has found a wonderful flat with its own greenhouse, but there is one problem: the flat is for married couples only. The best solution for both is a marriage, but to convince the immigration officers that they are married for love and not out of convenience, they must move in with each other and try to cope with all the difficulties that this will bring...

It wouldn't have been a romantic comedy / drama if there weren't the necessary complications between the two people, so in that perspective this certainly isn't an original movie. But there is one difference: normally this kind of movies never shows a marriage of convenience, as it is something that doesn't belong in the perfect image of love and happiness that this kind of movies wants to portray. Fact is that it is a 'daring' move - although only to a certain extend - that really works. I really didn't have any problem to believe that in reality Brontë and Georges would never marry because their worlds are too far apart. And I admit that I was still a bit surprised when seeing the end of the movie. Of course their ideas about each other change, this is still a romantic movie, but it was all done in a very decent way.

Overall the acting in this movie is quite good. Despite the fact that I had my doubts about him before watching the movie I must admit that I even liked Depardieu, probably because he didn't have to conceal his awful French accent when speaking English. He more or less could be himself this time and that's good. Also nice was Andie MacDowell's performance and I loved Jessie Keosian as the noisy landlady.

All in all this is an interesting romantic drama - I wouldn't really call it a comedy - that offers a good story and some nice acting. It's perhaps not the best in the genre, but it's certainly better than average. That's why I give this movie a 7/10.

Usually, romantic comedies are all the same, concerning their tone and their dialogue. „Green Card` by the great director Peter Weir („Truman Show`, „Witness`!), is a little different, which alone makes it sympathetic.

The film evokes interest right at the beginning because if people don't know exactly what it is all about, they might not get immediately what's happening. Brontë is already married to Georges the French composer. Other directors or screenwriters would have shown their wedding in detail, peppered with gags. But Weir sees that this is not necessary, it would only follow the convention.

Later we have unexpected plot twists and changes in the characters that are not always convincing but give the film an interesting, not too light base tone. And actually, Peter Weir is a too enthusiastic director to make a visually rather undemanding romance film. So he introduces some wonderful visual ideas like the scene where Georges is standing in front of Brontë's door, covered with a blanket, calling her name, while the camera shoots him from inside, through the „watcher`. I'm not particularly fond of Andie MacDowell because she always seems even more nervous than my English teacher, always presenting herself with a pained smile. In „Green Card` of course, the fact that she is not at all likeable (to me at least) fits perfectly, and one little wonder of the movie is that Gérard Depardieu can convincingly play that he is falling in love with her.

A comedy surprise.

This movie is strangely addictive. Gérard Depardieu displays a very noble and charming character who is at the same time a simple and gruff man. He doesn't do the pretentiousness that is so common today. He is unsophisticated yet not uncomplicated. Andie MacDowell plays her part wonderfully. You just want to smack her silly at times, which proves that McDowell is a great actress. She is also one of Hollywood's "Classic" beauties. She is a pleasure to watch not only for her first rate acting but also because she is such a handsome woman.

My wife hooked me on this movie. I am a typical American man, who is usuually into action and SciFi movies. I usually run screaming from romantic movies. The fact that this is a Romantic COMEDY made it fun to watch. Depardieu plays the large "oafish" commoner to a "T". He is a very funny man indeed, as well as a first rate actor in his own right. He is not in enough movies, IMNSHO.

I wish the studio that owns this would release it on DVD in the US.

Green Card is a good movie. Worth watching. The first time I saw it I wasn't impressed, but then watching it again I found it realistic and refreshingly charming, in that "simple/against the tide" sort of way that is so Peter Weir. He's also done The Witness, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show; and Green Card, most certainly, is another of his films about people who don't quite fit in their environment or in the world of their aspirations but are drawn into finding life where probably they were not looking for. The scene about finding the bathroom is both hilarious and very suspenseful. It's funny how in a house, or even in a small apartment, we're never quite sure where the bathroom is. Our first instinct is to ask, even though it probably wouldn't be a difficult move to find that on our own. Now imagine having to deal with that bathroom situation (something you only care about when you need it) pretending that the place where you're in is your house. It's almost like in those nightmares where there are so many doors but which one is the one that will take you to that next level you so much need but have not the slightest idea of what it might really be? I guess the metaphor here is that you keep on opening a chain of wrong doors until you find the right one for you. It's frustrating, but the door was always there, always, with the exception that you never noticed it. Just like in everyday life, love and spirituality might flash into your face as banal sight at first, but they're made of hopes and fears that are always bigger than us, unexplainable, maybe fate. We don't have control of it (the Greeks knew it), we're still the same but again we're not. And here we are, groping, surviving. How do you relate to people and to your present circumstances -- whatever they might be --that is what Green Card is about.

A romantic comedy-drama really, with far fewer laughs and much more sentiment than typical for the genre, though seemingly based on the favourite romcom premise that two people thrown into a position of intimacy for an extended period will inevitably fall into a touching and romantic love no matter how incompatible they at first appear. Depardieu comes across very well, though really doesn't need to try very hard to pull off the fairly stereotypical 'big french feller' he plays here, and MacDowell is her usual droney-voiced, moody-faced self, there to look pretty but prim rather than inspire any great feeling. The story ambles along nicely, taking in most of the standard licks of the genre ? impressing the friends, the family, high jinks with the neighbours, bad behaviour and heroism, shouting and laughing together to illustrate how love can emerge from conflict. Not hugely funny or romantic, but very nice to see that a romantic leading man could still smoke, drink and eat lots of butter in health-obsessed Hollywood back in 1990.