What's so great about this movie? Most people dismiss Green Card as just another "romantic chick-flick comedy", but it's FAR more than that. While not a "message movie", it's actually a light commentary on the institution of marriage, and what makes it work.It starts with a premise that everyone can recognize: two people who can barely stand each other must put aside their differences for a greater good. The actual wedding (and its attendant emotions) is carefully avoided, only to drop us into the lives of our protagonists as they are suddenly forced to make their marriage of convenience appear real. Only when they do the hard work to make it real, does it actually become real: the emotions experienced are the result of the commitment, not the motivation for the commitment. In other words, if "luck is the residue of design", then love is the residue of commitment.This is not to imply that the movie is perfect, but it does hold up very well after all these years. Yes, the clothes are very much of their time and there are a few "groanable moments", but for the most part I see no reason why people not born when the movie was written and filmed shouldn't be able to relate to the story and understand what the producers were "getting at".With beautiful scenery and an outstanding cast, this movie was also very nearly prophetic in anticipating all the "singles in the city" movies and TV shows of the 1990s (of which Friends is the most famous example). Which is not to say that Green Card was the only movie of its time with those qualities, but merely IMHO the most exemplary. Would there be a Hallmark Channel today without movies like Green Card?

A marriage of convenience to New York environmental activist Brontë (Andie MacDowell) gets French waiter Georges (Gérard Depardieu) a green card to work in America. Brontë gets a sort of "green card" too, in the form of permission to rent an apartment with a rooftop greenhouse. In fact, the colour green is in almost every scene: an emerald green lamp, a nicely placed green wine bottle in several shots, Brontë's clothes, and of course, plants, which appear in pretty much every interior shot –the apartment, a friend's house, restaurants. The exception is Brontë's bedroom (where she's always alone), which is desert colours. This is a very interior movie, and I love how Weir focuses on little details –feet coming down the stairs, the peephole in the front door, water dripping from leaves in the greenhouse –to make the closed spaces interesting. The first time we see Georges and Brontë together, they are saying goodbye on the steps of the courthouse after tying the knot. Suspicion from Immigration agents forces the pair to try proving they have a real marriage. They quickly find that they can't stand each other. But the circumstances force them to spend time learning the details of each other's radically different lives, and then repeat them to the Immigration officials in tones of love and admiration, in order to sound like they are mad for each other. Eventually it has an unexpected effect. The point is that acting and speaking like you love someone can actually bring about what it pretends. I think that's true, even though it goes against conventional ideas of being "genuine", which can simply be an excuse for rudeness. This serious theme is mixed with several situations drawn from the comedy of errors handbook. Green Card has one of the funniest scenes of all time, in my opinion, in which Georges must find a way to convince a room full of New York society people that he's an accomplished musical composer. The laughter is generated by the kind of tension between straight-lacedness and mayhem of a Marx Brothers routine. Bebe Neuwirth as Brontë's friend Lauren is wonderful, nothing remotely like her Lilith character in Cheers, and her reaction to Georges in the musical episode makes the scene even more hilarious.

This is in response to RCarstairs...I cried too and without a personal loss. (Glad you're OK now) But I think this movie more than any other I've seen captures falling in love. Gerard sees it coming, but Andy doesn't. That last scene, when they spy each other through the cafe window, and then rush to embrace is her first realization that she loves him. In fact, I think that the viewer is also lulled into thinking this is just a silly little story until that scene. I know I was. So the effect was amazing, for me. I sat there stunned, and (how corny) my heart opened! And the tears. I wandered around for an hour or so after the movie, sort of disoriented. Peter Weir is a genius!

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.