FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Romantic Comedy: Peter Weir - Green Card 

In romantic comedies such as Hollywood, the lovers must collide as unusually as possible. For example, both are loaded with Christmas parcels and collide outside the shopping mall, so that all parcels fly in a jumble. Afterwards they get into conversation... Green Card makes fun of such formulas and uses them as an alibi. The truth is, a Frenchman here is marrying an American woman to get a green card. Officially, however, both explain their story with the Christmas packages as the reason why they are married. Frenchman Georges is played by Gerard Depardieu. He needs a work permit. The American woman Bronte, this is Andie McDowell. She wants to move into a luxury apartment with a roof garden, but this is only rented to married couples. But since the immigration authorities are finding out about them, they both have to live together for a few days, study the "partner's" habits and compare their stories. A film like Green Card can now deliver on two promises: Either the formulas of romantic comedy are preserved or destroyed. Director Peter Weir decides to preserve old principles: At first, the pair is very different, even opposite. Then they make enemies and finally they fall in love. And that's not all: they deny themselves, split up and... We know all the steps, but Weir has added some nice moments and of course the charming characters themselves. Gerard Depardieu was undoubtedly France's biggest star in the early 90s: Bulky, shaggy and rather deranged. He succeeded in each of his roles with effortless charm and it was always so that one could no longer imagine another actor in this role. Green Card was even written by Weir on Depardieus' body with influences from his biography. It's hardly surprising that someone like Georges, aka Depardieu Bronte. She is an ethereal beauty, self-confident and intelligent. But would such a woman marry a stranger just to get an apartment? Green Card argues: That's a possibility in Manhattan. I'm willing to swallow that, although I think the plot has yet to be explained. Green Card works very well with the two actors and the right shooting in a lot of scenes. The passage in which Georges unexpectedly meets Bronte's parents, for example, ignores the standards that Hollywood would now play out: there is no great scandal, Georges and the "in-laws" get along wonderfully. Bronte's father sees through the situation immediately and uses it to test George's character. I also liked the scene where Georges was introduced to Bronte's friends at a party. Of course they are snobbish and of course Georges, after he was introduced as a composer, has to play something on the piano. But what follows is the best scene in the movie! Green Card runs like clockwork and is brilliant in some places. But best of all: Green Card is not part of the Romantic Comedies canon and can still be discovered!