GREEN CARD (1990) *** Pete Weir sets you up with the opening credits drum scene. This is gonna be different, he says, this is going to be fast paced and exotic. It isn't really all that fast paced, but you never get over the idea that it might be. Whether or not it's exotic is open to interpretation. I say it is. Weir does a lot of radical and interesting things with sound, but he does them subtly, for the most part. An impressive variety of esoteric music is worked so indelibly into the film that it becomes a part of the fabric, not just that it has to be there but that it should be (with the one very glorious exception). For all that, it could have been very, very, saccharine sappy, if it wasn't for the stars. Gérard Depardieu, the fallen idealist who has long since thrown away anything worth holding onto; Andie MacDowell, the proto-normalist malcontent pressed to extremes bordering on insanity in an effort to salvage anything from what she considers conformity. So these two might have something to offer each other, yes? It's good in concept, and way better in fact. The chemistry between the stars is absolutely tremendous, if not so brilliant that I have to deny enjoying the brief interruptions by Jessie Keosian. Depardieu's denunciations of social work, environmentalism, health food and most else that the target audience holds dear is easy enough to work around. Because he's, at heart, a romantic. And isn't that the fountainhead of where all this other good stuff comes from? And isn't it true that anyone who can even fake that kind of poetry about children has reserves somewhere that are only waiting to be accessed properly. No wonder the government's after him.
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