Gérard Depardieu stars as Georges, an aspiring composer from France working a day job as a waiter in New York City. Andie MacDowell is a horticulturalist who has fallen in love with an Upper East Side apartment featuring a rooftop greenhouse. He’s a bearish bohemian who embraces life with gusto and needs a green card to stay in America. She’s a straight-laced, elegant intellectual who needs a husband to satisfy the apartment board. So the pair wed and then go their separate ways in a paper marriage that they will then have to live for real when immigration comes to check up on them. The English language debut of French superstar Depardieu, 1990’s Green Card is a light but sweet romantic comedy of opposites who create an imaginary life together and end up falling in love. Director Peter Weir, who wrote the original screenplay for Depardieu, plays to the strengths of both performers; the beefy, masculine Depardieu is both rough-edged (his character fought his way up from the streets) and tender, a meat-eating smoker whose gruff manner couldn’t be different from the careful restraint and social grace of the willowy MacDowell. Yet those differences bring them together as they spend a weekend together learning one another’s personal histories, interests, and quirks while cramming for a formal interview with authorities. Green Card is a romanticized portrait of illegal immigration that turns into a genuine romance in the Golden Globe-winning (and Oscar-nominated) screenplay. Extras include an interview with MacDowell. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)
Green Card
Kino Lorber, 107 min., PG-13, DVD: $14.99, Blu-ray: $24.99
Green Card
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