Blue State is a movie starring Breckin Meyer and Anna Paquin. Breckin Meyer stars as John Logue, a liberal who is crushed when John Kerry loses the 2004 election. After being pressured into living up to his campaign promise of moving to Canada if John Kerry loses; John packs up his station wagon and heads to Canada. He is accompanied by Chloe (Anna Paquin) who has her own reasons to flee to Canada. What follows is a romantic comedy with twists, turns, and a message thrown in.
The movie starts out slow and I almost turned it off at one point but the movie picked up towards the middle and had a great finish. The movie is really a great movie. What bogged me down was I am not political and political talk bores me easily. During the whole road trip to Canada, John goes on and on with his political opinions. He even starts to irritate Chloe. After an extremely awkward pit stop dinner at John’s parent’s house, Chloe lays into him and admits that she is in the service. She has already served one tour in Iraq and she is trying to avoid a second tour by fleeing Canada. That is the point when the movie started to interest me.
Once arriving in Canada, John and Chloe meet up with a lady who runs a website that marries Americans to Canadians so that the Americans can gain Canadian citizenship. John neglected to mention this to Chloe during their trip. She is disgusted by the whole affair and in her words “the cult.” After enduring lots of American bashing, John finally realizes this group isn’t for him. After more road tripping and meeting an American who has lived in Canada for 35 years, Chloe realizes she needs to go back to America and face the consequences of her actions. John hasn’t had enough of Canada yet and with Chloe’s insistence, he drops her off at the border and she walks over to turn herself in to the authorities. As John is driving away, he looks in the rearview mirror and sees the American flag. He finally realizes he isn’t ready to give up on his country so he turns around and crosses the border.
My favorite scene is when the guards is checking John’s passport and he sees Chloe being taken away in handcuffs. Their eye contact says so much and made the movie for me. Cut forward to who knows how long (probably at least six months), John drives up to a gated prison like area. Chloe is escorted to the gate and released with all of her belongs. The viewers are left to assume she served some time for deserting the army but now she has done her time and is free to go. John is happily waiting for her and hands her a campaign button. Yep, John is now running for the state senate. Yeah, no more whining from John; he is now ready to try and make a difference in our government.
Blue State is not the normal type of movie I enjoy but I am so glad I gave this movie a chance. I give the movie 4 out of 5 stars.
