Willie (Herschel Savage) is an immigrant who works as a delivery boy for a supermarket. One day, he delivers groceries to Wanda (softcore actress Sharon Kelly, now known as "Colleen Brennan"), a prostitute that he takes advantage of by sabotaging her apartment door to break in and rob her while she's away. Hiding under her bed when she returns home early, he discovers her scheme with corrupt lawyer Segal to provide permanent residency (the "Green Card") to immigrants eager to obtain it through arranged marriages for $2,000 per arrangement. This leads Willie to propose to Wanda, who, despite her surprise, accepts as a source of extra income. Her refusal to kiss him during their wedding night is one of several subtle details that enrich this grotesque and unsettling narrative. Soon, Willie finds himself entangled in Wanda's shady dealings with the criminal gang led by a certain Jimmy "the Jinx," played by Pachard himself.

One of the last truly remarkable films shot on emultion is the relentless and depressing "Getting Personal" seems forged with the dramatic force of social commentary and the misery of two small-time losers trying to change their fate, fearlessly risking attracting an audience of the genre that was already demanding more cinematic substance in the mid-80s. Ron "Arthur Ben" Dorfman's melancholic cinematography revels in the grime of the dark and seedy dive bars in the San Francisco Bay Area, where much of the action takes place. An uncompromising and relentless script by Ron Sullivan (the great Henri Pachard) is brought to life with great vividness thanks to some of the most heartfelt performances ever seen in an adult film. The greatest accolade goes to the incomparable Brennan, who manages to imbue the pathetic Wanda with humanity in her struggle to survive. Here, she allows herself to appear objectively emaciated, without this making her a sexually repulsive element. After all, it's still adult cinema, and the sex is all the more memorable for being dramatically justified and fully integrated into the characters and the dramatic arc.