Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

namashi_1 Maverick Filmmaker Peter Weir's 'Green Card' is A Great Entertainer, that mixes Humor & Romance, Efficently. Also, the Performances by its Protagonists are charming! 'Green Card' Synopsis: A man wanting to stay in the US enters into a marriage of convenience, but it turns into more than that.Peter Weir is a SUPEMELY Talented Storyteller, he's made Fantastic Films throughout his thriving career & 'Green Card' is Amongst his Most Accomplished Works to date. As mentioned before, A Great Entertainer, that mixes Humor & Romance, Efficiently! Weir's Oscar-Nominated Original Screenplay is delightful, so is his Direction. Cinematography, Editing & Art Design, are passable.Performance-Wise: Gérard Depardieu & Andie MacDowell deliver Charming Performances. Both of the talented actors also share a Striking On-Screen Chemistry from Start to End.On the whole, 'Green Card' is a must watch.

DAVID SIM Green Card was made at the time Peter Weir had been making an attempt to break into the Hollywood mainstream. In his native Australia, Weir made some offbeat but effective horror/fantasy films, in particular the beautiful, atmospheric and very eerie Picnic at Hanging Rock. After the move to America, Weir's output has become somewhat sporadic, but his films are never less than interesting and have a refreshing intelligence among the predictability's of US fodder.Green Card was Weir's first film after having huge success the year before with the excellent Dead Poets Society. And while perhaps a little more straightforward than what he usually goes in for, Green Card is a superior rom-com that mostly avoids the clichés that come with the genre.Green Card has a plot that could easily be built out into a US sitcom. An American woman marries a Frenchman so he can get his green card. And she can get the apartment of her dreams, which is available only to married couples. When Immigration start snooping around, they have to put on the pretence of being married, and that includes friends and family. Naturally they're different in every way. She's a prissy, prim and pretentious snob. He's a crude, rude, and lewd slob. But they're falling in love anyway.Its a credit to Peter Weir's skills as a storyteller that he can make such a contrived scenario fly. But he does. Obviously a personal project for Weir, he wrote, produced and directed it. Which means his unique vision is stamped upon every aspect of the film. In the hands of a more pedestrian writer/director, Green Card would have you running for the nearest exit, but Weir's confident, assured direction hits a lot of the right notes.There's a common theme that runs through much of Peter Weir's films. An outsider in a foreign land. In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey was a real man surrounded by a fictitious world. In Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams was a free-thinking teacher at a conservative prep school. And in Green Card, Gerard Depardieu is a foreigner in America.I think Peter Weir shares a special kinship with Depardieu's character, Georges. They're both foreign men trying to work in an alien land. Weir's script refreshingly avoids all the usual clichés. It never has Georges as a bumbling, blithering idiot bound by the language barrier, as other filmmakers would have been tempted to do just to get easy laughs. Green Card attains much of its mileage from Georges quiet awe of his adopted country, and his slow discovery of the woman he married out of convenience.In his first English speaking role, Gerard Depardieu does very well. In fact he does much better than he has in any of his subsequent film roles. He never overplays his hand, or makes Georges too broad as a character. His acting almost verges on minimalism, but he gets across to the audience without ever sacrificing his realism.Andie MacDowell spends all her time now promoting Loreal, but Green Card shows there was a time when she actually did concentrate on an acting career. I've never been much of a fan of Andie MacDowell. Although radiant, she often seems rather remote as an actress. Like she prefers to keep the people she works with at a distance. Despite the occasional gem like Groundhog Day, MacDowell hardly ever impresses as an actress.In the case of Green Card, Peter Weir has made the wise choice of creating a character for her she's suited too. Bronte is supposed to be an aloof, distant society gal, and its something that fits Andie MacDowell's temperament perfectly. Her quiet exasperation with Georges' lifestyle is very amusing, and even if her timing is slightly off, most of the lines Weir gives her are usually on the nose.Green Card is one of the few films where we have the rare pleasure of seeing the extremely underrated Bebe Neuwirth in a major role. And she doesn't disappoint as Bronte's spontaneous, larger than life friend Lauren. Bebe Neuwirth always has tremendous charisma, and never fails to dominate the screen. Best known for playing humourless ice maiden Lilith Sternin in Cheers and Frasier, Neuwirth is one of Hollywood's unsung actresses.Lauren's observations over Georges and Bronte's 'relationship' are hilarious. Neuwirth has an uncanny ability to be eye-wateringly funny and then turn serious at a moment's notice. In fact one suspects she would have made a much better Bronte than MacDowell does. Bebe Neuwirth is by far the better actress, and its sad she's not in the film more often. She lights up the screen whenever she's around. Love the look on her face after she hears Georges' piano concerto at a plush dinner party! Worth the price of admission alone!Peter Weir's films are often lush and attractive to look at and Green Card is no exception. We get to see some beautiful photography in Bronte's greenhouse. Lush greens and relaxing streams. Beautiful sunsets highlighted by the Manhattan skyline. Accompanied to a wonderful whimsical film score by Hans Zimmer, with haunting vocals from an uncredited Enya.As things draw to a close, Green Card becomes quite intense. We know that Georges and Bronte are getting closer, but the Immigration interview hangs over them both. They desperately need to get their stories straight if they ever hope to get through this. And much as he did in Dead Poets Society, Peter Weir shocks one and all by ending things on a real downer. They don't succeed. And Georges is deported back to France, just as they've admitted their love for each other.Green Card may not be one of Peter Weir's classic films, but its a refreshing antidote to Hollywood's sugary sweet romantic comedy genre. It has an intelligent stride that is very fulfilling, and an ending that will leave you depressed for days afterwards.

marydry My daughter gave me the DVD for Christmas. I already had it on VHS. One question; Why does Andie McDowell look pregnant in some scenes and not in others.It is my favorite movie. Between the greenhouse, which is think I might too have to marry in order to get it myself if I were in her position, to Gerard's strange sexiness, to the African music, and the final scene with the exchange of rings, it cannot be beat!! Favorite lines include, "I am the husband, so yes I #@+* her", "She likes to eat birdseed", "She has peace, I do not have peace", and of course, . . "And always I will say, When are you coming Cherie?" Keep your eye on the prize!! Maybe we all should.

leplatypus A movie isn't never as much great as it can speak personally. This movie does it for me and I'm lucky. This review is thus very subjective but it comes from the heart....First, it is a rare movie in which I feel my favorite town, New York as my neighborhood. The town really appears as an endless collection of big cubic buildings, but under the soft menace of the green invasion (trees, garden,...). All the roof scenes are memorable...Then, McDowell plays an almost introvert woman in contrast to the French extraversion of Depardieu. Sure, being French, I support our national icon, who is particularly in his turf here, but I was more over captivated by the development of the Bronte character and her feelings. From her initial motivation, then indifference to exasperation and finally complicity & deep devotion, it was a remarkable evolution to behold and understand.Finally, there's also a lot of subtext & subtlety here and it's great for the brain: I mean some things talks to our unconscious and the connection isn't immediate. For example, think how Africa is the main background: the emigration subject, the Afrika bar, the drums, the safari life ... There's also the sweet translation from Green Card to Green House, and the role of ecology... Like I already said, the green tries to grow in every free space left from the rock buildings, which is a poetic metaphor for the emigration...So, a great romantic story in a wonderful setting & which leaves many doors to open...