Blue State
Breckin Meyer, Anna Paquin
Directed by Marshall Lewy
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2008
92 minutes
“The grass isn’t greener on the other side, especially if it’s covered with snow” is the tag line for tBlue Stae and it pretty much sums it up. This is a decent if slow paced road movie romantic comedy with a political twist. What irks is the feeling it could have been much better.
John (Meyer) worked on Kerry’s 04 campaign and swore on his life if Bush won he would move to Canada. Oops. His friends try to take him up on it and when John loses not only the election but his job and girlfriend on the same day he decides Canada may be a good idea after all. To share costs he puts up an ad and ends up with Chloe (Anna Paquin) as co-pilot for the trip to Winnipeg, headquarters of marryacanadian dot com.
Blue State has a bit of a low-budget movie feel to it in its simplicity. It also shares the standard low budget film flaws. Some of the dialogue is artificial -the scenes between John and his father for example; Breckin Meyer does not have the charisma needed for a leading man role (and so could not steal the movie from executive producer and star Anna Paquin); and it cannot avoid clichéd Canadian clichés such as the one and only francophone border guard east of Quebec, put downs of American beer, curling, and all Canadians saying aboot. What irritates is these are not presented as clichés.
Chloe, a carnivore junk food eater, is an interesting character that actually develops as Blue State progresses. John is, in her accurate words, a vegetarian Luna bar eating tight ass. He is also a most eager thus annoying capital L liberal. The movie’s greatest weak point is John never becomes more than a flat character.
The movie gets a little more dynamic once John and Chloe get to Canada and John meets a woman / praying mantis. It has an interesting twist some time later.
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