Blue State

Now to a couple of romantic films with the  first having  an original subject which is of considerable interest to me as it combined what happened to the liberal revolutionaries society changers of the sixties and a their young people with similar values and ideals working today? As with the other films covered Blue State only works if you accept some of the initial story features. A young Democrat activist for the Democratic Party Presidential candidate makes he drunken boast on local TV that if George Bush is re-elected for a second term he will immigrate to Canada. When the election is lost friends assume he will keep his promise and when he is sent an email from a Canadian site where you Canadian men and women volunteer to marry USA citizens to enable them to become Canadian citizens and he notes the attractive appearance of several of the girls and he then loses his former job he decides that the idea is a good one. So instead of setting off on his own he first advertises for a travelling companion who shares his political and social values.

Most of the replying are men with whom he has nothing in common but when an attractive young woman arrives he is sufficiently attracted to overlooking the clues that she is not who she seems. They commence with separate motel rooms but as the journey progresses towards the Canadian border they share one room although nothing develops. He is something of a control freak having planned the journey in considerable detail including when they can get vehicles gas from a socialist based company. They each have major secrets.

He calls in on his mum and dad where the father is an extreme Bush supporting troop supporting maniac who cannot beat to listen to the views of his son and during the evening meal shortly on arrival asks him to leave. The father talks about their son other son as if he is still serving in Iraq/Afghanistan. It is only later hat we learn he was killed in action and his father has been unable to accept his death or that he potentially died for a lost or dubious cause.

The girl insists of  being dropped off just before the border admitting that she is not the young rebel with coloured hair protestor but in fact a soldier who has served in Iraq and is  due to return over seas after the furlough. She explains she is the only child of a several generation military family who given the alternatives joined up having been told she would not go into a combat area.

They arrive at the house of the organiser of the web site to find a wedding taking place and a mixture of oddballs more interested in finding a sexual partner than  because  feeling alienated by a second term Bush administration. She is not impressed by them or the Canadian society of Winnipeg or that he appears to readily go along with the plans of their mature hostess that he should marry her.

Once the two disclose their real feelings for each other they make a quick escape. She gives herself up at the border and he elects to return to the USA to await her release from custody sometime later. By then he has become a candidate for the Senate.

During their return they run out of petrol and are saved by  someone who turns out to have been a draft dodger at the time of Vietnam War and whose reflections has an influence on the couple.