DATE REVIEWED: 10/18/25
TITLE: Blue State
BOX OFFICE RATED: R (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2007 MGM / Paquin Films / Eagle Vision / Chicken Pictures
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie began in California with 28-year-old John Logue going door-to-door and soliciting people to vote for Democratic candidates John Kerry as president and his running mate John Edwards as VP in the 2004 presidential election. However, many of the people planned to vote for Bush and John believed Bush was evil. John told one lady that it was a democratic election, so she slammed her private property door in John’s face and he gave her the middle finger. John then made a promise to his friends and a news crew that filmed him at the bar that if Bush got re-elected, he would move to Canada. The day after the election, John watched Kerry announce on live TV that he lost and was seceding to the winner Bush. John hated Kerry for losing and later spewed his hate for the Republican party to his friend Hal over beers. John declared that Bush was a moron and Cheney had his hand up Bush’s butt, and they were both too dumb to run the country. Hal reminded Jim that he swore on his life that he would move Canada if Kerry lost the election, but John argued that he was drunk when he made the promise on the news so John’s word meant nothing. All of John’s friends left him messages singing “O Canada!” and wishing him well on his move. John went to see if he could get back his old job as a graphic designer that he had before he went to work full-time on the Kerry campaign. However, John’s former boss Esther Yang explained that she couldn’t hire him back because DigiHouse decided to move their operations to Nashville. Esther suggested that John work more on his angry donkey blog, and then he noticed the engagement ring on Esther’s finger and realized that there was no hope of continuing a relationship between them. John was irate when he found out that his old boss Esther was engaged to John’s coworker Craig, who had his desk outside his lover boss Ms. Yang’s door and eavesdropped. John then received a message on his answering machine from MarryACanadian.com in Winnipeg. Gloria O’Neill solicited John to help him relocate to Canada with her company’s help as she did for other Americans who wanted to escape the US after the disastrous election.John accused Hal of signing him up for the website, but Hal argued that he didn’t. John then called Canadian Gloria, who explained that she got his name and number through grapevine friends and confirmed that Canada didn’t have any questionable organizations like the CIA in the US and the Canadians enjoyed their privacy. Gloria offered to help John find Canadian woman to marry in order for him to get citizenship if he decided to move to Winnipeg. Gloria encouraged John to look at the Canadian website for profiles of eligible females. John was amazed it was that simple to get help relocating and finding a wife, so he browsed through the Canadian profiles with their fake names. John joined the online dating site himself and created his own fake name “Disgruntled Donkey” including a link to his blog The Donkey Revolution. Soon after, John put up flyers around town with his contact information in hopes a fellow liberal would go with him to Canada to share the travel expenses. John interviewed several potential men but was unsuccessful in finding a ride-share partner. A female named Chloe Hamon prepared for interview by putting blue streaks in her dark hair and piercing her nose, and then she met with John. Chloe questioned if John was a celebrity, and he explained that he was on the local news and he planned to document his move to Canada on his blog so that was somewhat stardom. Chloe was onboard with John and just wanted to get out of the US as soon as possible. She lied that she was on the main DNC campaign for Kerry and was upset that he lost (she never voted in the election). John and Chloe made plans to leave for Canada the next day. Hal had a change of heart and tried to talk John out of giving up his American citizenship and leaving the country just because of one lost election. Hal pointed out that Gandhi didn’t go on a sex trip to keep the British out of India and MLK didn’t have sex with white women to blend the South. That didn’t change John’s mind and so he would go to Canada and keep his drunken word. John picked Chloe up in a shady part of the city and they hit the road. John mapped out the expenses for the trip in a binder and gave it to Chloe, who agreed that they should be on the same page with their budget. John added that he didn’t support Middle Eastern Oil and was only stopping at Venezuelan-backed gas stations like Coorco even though Chavez was no saint. John was a vegetarian and Chloe was not, so at the first stop John paid for his healthy food and Chloe’s unhealthy food. He then found out that Chloe couldn’t drive his standard car even though he put it as a requirement on his flyer. John and Chloe checked into a Super 8 Hotel, and she didn’t want to share a king-sized bed and insisted that John get them two rooms. John listened to Bush on TV announce that he earned capital in the election and he planned to spend it on what he told the people he would. There was free Wi-Fi at the hotel, but John couldn’t get Internet to update his blog. John and Chloe left to eat after they checked into their rooms. Chloe explained that she was a physical education teacher before the campaign. John planned to mainly focus on the Donkey Revolution blog and possibly do freelance because graphic design work was portable. John and Chloe agreed to meet back up at 8:30 the next morning. John heard on the news that Colin Powell and three other government officials resigned, and then the comedian reporter started taking her clothes off. The next morning, John taught Chloe how to drive stick and they set off. At Seddon’s rest stop, John called his mom to tell her that he was in Oregon and would visit her and his dad in Washington State later that day. He warned his mom that his friend Chloe might be a blue-haired lesbian, and then he told Chloe that they were visiting his parents. She was fine with it as long as they weren’t her parents, and then she drove. They listened to clips from Bush’s speeches that John compiled on a CD, and he told Chloe they needed to listen to the mistakes to find out the person’s true character. John and Chloe arrived at John’s parents’ house. John’s mom was surprised by Chloe’s dog collar, and Chloe explained that it was a new look and showed John’s mom a picture of how she looked decent a few days before with no blue hair and nose piercing. John’s dad was a Bush supporter and told John that democratic John was what was wrong with America today. Mr. Logue commented on the ragheads that were flushed out of Baghdad, and John retorted that 14 American troops were killed in the process. The conversation at dinner was political, and Mr. Logue called John out for defending the Middle Eastern terrorists when they caused 9/11 on American soil. John argued that it wasn’t the foreigners responsible for 9/11 but in fact the American government pushing their agenda on the people. Mr. Logue blamed the media for the bad information about the Middle East that affected American citizens. Mrs. Logue left the table, and Chloe followed. Mrs. Logue explained that her husband wasn’t always like that and their other son Perry was a soldier in Iraq. John told Mr. Logue that they could believe different things, but Mr. Logue argued that it wasn’t a difference of opinion if John’s brother died in Iraq for a cause that most of the family believed was right. Mr. Logue told his son John to leave, and he gave his mom a hug since she couldn’t understand why he kept provoking his dad. John and Chloe left, and they argued in their car about supporting troops in the Iraqi war. Chloe wouldn’t voice her own opinion, so John thought she was siding with his parents. They stayed in a motel with two rooms and the next morning prepared to cross the border into Canada. Chloe made a call from a payphone to tell someone that she was okay. Before they crossed into Canada, Chloe demanded that John pull over. She confessed that she lied about being a gym teacher and that was her dad’s job. Chloe explained that she was actually in the Army and was supposed to ship out for her second tour in Iraq the next day, and her hair dye and piercings were just for the Canadian trip. Chloe told John to drive her back to Spokane where she would take the bus home, but John talked her into crossing the border with him and regretted that he couldn’t convince Perry to become a democrat. Chloe was worried that they would run her passport and find out she was AWOL in Canada when she didn’t show up for duty the next day. The Canadian customs officer checked their passports and asked them a few questions, and John lied that they were visiting his aunt Gloria. The Canadian border agent told them that American beer tasted like pee and then he welcomed them to Canada. John and Chloe stopped at a bar, and she told her story about the generations of soldiers in her family. She only enlisted in the army because the recruiter reassured her and told her three times that she would never see combat because she was a woman after she dropped out of college and had a failed relationship with her boyfriend. John’s response was Jesus name in vain. John explained that he had to leave the country because his vote didn’t matter and his president didn’t get elected after all the hard work he did. Otherwise that meant John was forced to live under the regimen of a Republican president that he didn’t believe in. Chloe accused John of running away from his problems. John and Chloe shared a motel room with two beds, and he was disappointed that they didn’t have sex that night because younger Chloe drank too much and passed out. The next day, they drove to Gloria’s house where people of all ages were drinking and partying to celebrate a wedding that just occurred. Gloria explained that a couple had to live together for six months in order to get citizenship, and she pointed out that some of the girls that John was interested in from online were there. Chloe wasn’t pleased that it was a mixer dating potential marriage event, and John argued that it was more of a NAFTA meeting. Canadian Gloria smoked cigarettes and sarcastically told John about how American people voted Republican because they believed it was in line with moral values. An American man then cornered Chloe and wanted to have sex with her because he didn’t hate President Bush and just came to Canada for sex. Gloria who put the horny man in her penalty box interrupted them. Chloe was upset and told John so as Rebecca introduced herself to John as a potential date he liked online. That night after many had left Gloria’s house, the American man was passed out on the couch in his underwear. Gloria showed Chloe to her room and then took John into her own bedroom and told him to sleep on a cot. John and Chloe went out to the car to get their stuff, and they got into a heated argument. She punched him and called him a wuss for hiding behind his Democrat ways that he thought were the best thing ever when it was ruining his life and those around him. Gloria nursed John’s sore face after he lied that he fell down the stairs, and then they appeared to have had sex. The next morning, Gloria took Chloe and John on a tour around Winnipeg. John and Gloria went curling at the rink while Chloe talked to Randall, a man from Detroit who grew up on the streets and could tell her character. Gloria suggested that she and John go to City Hall and apply for their marriage license since they had three months to make it legal. She wanted him to hurry up and begin the process of becoming a Canadian citizen, and John said he could always apply for asylum to avoid marrying Gloria. The Canadian female encouraged John to keep writing his blog and explained that they weren’t in love, but they were both political activists and needed to be together. John tried to talk to Chloe before he went to City Hall, but Chloe told him he was a jerk for trying to make a statement by marrying a 50-year-old activist and having a sexual relationship with the Canadian while trying to date Chloe on the side. John and Gloria spoke to a male Canadian representative at City Hall, who couldn’t believe that 45 million Americans were uninsured since the couple would have instant universal health care once they were married. Gloria joked about one of her friends moving to the states and how he could tell her about the 300 million fat and stupid Americans living there (even though the Canadian government worker was overweight). John signed the paperwork with Chloe and Randall as witnesses. Back at Gloria’s house, there was another party after a Jewish couple got married and Gloria announced that she and John had their license to get married. John told Chloe that they were leaving and went upstairs to pack their bags. Meanwhile, Randall (from Detroit) told Chloe that he wanted to do a Bonnie-and-Clyde thing with her and go stake out the White House. She would take out Vice President Cheney while he assassinated President Bush, and Randall had been planning it for a while but needed a partner in crime to make it work. As John came downstairs, Randall pulled out his gun and announced that Chloe was staying with him. Chloe knocked Randall down and took his gun, and John told Gloria that it wasn’t going to work out between them and he was leaving with Chloe. Gloria said that John was like all other Americans who did whatever they wanted. Randall followed John and Chloe out of the house and tried to tell her that he was joking about the Bush assassination. Randall then ran after the car to try and get his gun back, so Chloe took the bullets out of the gun and threw the gun on a lawn in the neighborhood. John and Chloe drove to Vancouver where they believed they could find normal people their own age. They ran out of gas on the side of the road because John refused to stop at a station that had Middle Eastern oil. They walked to a café where they met Charlie, an American man from California who had lived in Canada for 35 years. The gas stations were already closed for the night, so Charlie siphoned them some gas but announced that it wasn’t enough to get them far. Charlie took John and Chloe to his remote Lincoln type settler cabin, where he gave them bottles of his homemade beer. He also bragged that he made the Strawberry Statement Stout kind, and John recognized the name as an anti-Vietnam War riot that the college students organized and took over Columbia University. Charlie participated in that campus takeover, and then he got drafted so he moved to Canada. He admitted that nobody cared that he moved north and he only did it save his butt from fighting in the war. He wasn’t happy living in Canada and added that Americans no longer drafted people. Charlie went to bed and left John and Chloe in the small cabin with lots of his alcohol brew. Many beers later, John convinced Chloe that he never had sex with Gloria (not what Canadian Gloria claimed) because he was too drunk and Chloe said that Randall was a terrorist and nothing happened between them. Chloe announced that she was going back home to face the music now before she ended up living in a rustic log cabin in Canada 30 years from now and hating her life. She knew that her fellow soldiers in her platoon had already labeled her as a disgrace to her country for deserting. John admitted that his brother Perry died when his plane crashed shortly after Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech. John’s parents were in denial and couldn’t handle their military son’s death in the Middle East war so they pretended he was still alive. Chloe wanted John to drop her off because they reached the border so he wouldn’t be involved in her criminal situation fleeing the country. John told Chloe that she was the best thing that had happened to him, so the two kissed and had sex. The next morning, they said goodbye to Charlie and headed to the border. They stopped just outside the port of entry and discussed how if Chloe were lucky, she would get a dishonorable discharge from the military. Chloe quoted “politics make strange bedfellows” from John’s blog and told him that he was a good writer and should pursue politics. John and Chloe kissed goodbye and she walked to the border. John drove off but then decided not to be a runaway anymore, so he turned around and decided to back to the USA. At the gate, Chloe was already arrested and handcuffed in the custody of a border patrol officer because her passport had been flagged. In the end, John picked Chloe up from the military prison and they were happy to see each other. They left together after John gave Chloe a voting button with his name on it because he planned on running as a democratic senator in California to change the country. The movie cover art listed, Martin Kelley, CinemATL, “Disarmingly fun.”