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Potato Dreams Of America

3/6/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
​ Available On Amazon

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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
By Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon.

​
​POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA

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     Last weekend I watched an offbeat, wonderful movie on Amazon Prime called "Potato Dreams of America."
    The premise of the film at first sounded like that of a schmaltzily predictable bad Hollywood  romantic comedy: a Russian woman becomes a mail-order bride to make her and her son's escape to America.
     But the film turned out to be neither schmaltzy nor predictable nor bad nor a rom-com. However it  tells a story that might well be tossed off as too dramatically unbelievable ― if the story  weren't in fact the autobiography of filmmaker Wes Hurley.
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      Wes Hurley with his mother.
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     Hurley wrote his story as a dark comedy that starts out  during his adolescence in the harsh final days of the Soviet Union. But in spite of  the darkness there are moments of light and sweetness,
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...as well as laugh-out-loud moments, as when the young protagonist imagines himself watching TV with Jesus,
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...or deals with his grandmother.
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     The movie does, thankfully, move from darkness to light, and even during the scenes in which one is most worried or distressed for the safety or well-being of the intrepid heroine and her lovable son,
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...one is grateful to know that this is a true story so that, as one reviewer put it, "The very existence of 'Potato Dreams of America' is its own happy ending."
        But in addition to its likableness,
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...the movie, for me, raised some thought-provoking questions:
     What does it take to make a person reject the peer values of  their country, their society, their family, and those all around them?
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      Does living under a repressive government - or a repressive religion, society or in any repressive environment - make people more unkind to each other?
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      Are people kinder the freer their country - or their religion - is?
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       And how is it that people who live in a free and democratic society will nonetheless choose to yolk themselves and others to  the tyranny of an oppressive, intolerant religion? 
     And what difference does it make if a government changes its name from Communist to Republic  if the lives of the people don't change?
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...or if they're still under the thumb of a brutal tyrant?
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     And, finally, how much of a coincidence is it that this movie  was released just a weeks before another true story of the human misery caused by an autocratic and imperialistic Russian government would begin playing out in real time?
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      Sometimes truth is more unbelievable than fiction.
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    Picture
    "Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    or from
    The Book Loft
    of German Village,
    Columbus, Ohio
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    Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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