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Hinging on the far fetched premise that if you put
two people with zero chemistry in a room together long enough,
green card marriage scam or not, they'll inevitably fall
in love with each other, The Proposal wouldn't seem to have
far to go from point A to B, and doesn't. And especially
not likely to sit well with the anti-immigration crowd either,
the movie sets up a green card marriage of convenience contract
turned crazy in love silliness, between two workmates who
can barely stand one another to begin with.***
Sandra Bullock does her frantic best with exceedingly
thin material, and playing blatantly against type with her
instinctively sweet and soft spoken persona, as a ferocious
ball-busting dragon lady executive ruthlessly draining the
self-esteem out of her assistant at the publishing house
where they work. Bullock is Margaret, aka Satan's Mistress,
a boss from hell who delights in tranforming her meek but
quietly resentful underling Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) basically
into her nine to five and beyond bitch.***
When Margaret, a Canadian citizen, learns that she is
about to be summarily deported for lack of a green card,
the scheming shrew insists that a shocked Andrew marry her
ASAP, an assignment not exactly in the routinely persecuted
assistant's job description. To add validity to the marriage
plot and elude a highly suspicious INS investigator, the
mutually loathing pair takes off for the weekend to visit
with Andrew' s filthy rich family up in rural Alaska. Where
his really annoying Grandma Annie (not so Golden Girl here,
Betty White) indulges in a repetitious mockery of Native
American culture and customs. All of which in effect, renders
the couple in extended infatuation denial, significantly
more palatable in comparison, believe it or not.***
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