User Reviews

As a huge fan of Alexander Payne's later films, I decided that it was about time I saw "Citizen Ruth." Though easily the weakest of Payne's films, I found the social commentary in "Citizen Ruth" more nuanced and provocative than his more popular works.

The film centers around Ruth, a down-and-out woman arrested for huffing toxic chemicals. It is discovered during her arrest that she is pregnant, and since she is a repeat offender with several neglected children, the judge in her case encourages her behind closed doors to have an abortion "for everyone's sake." The judge's comments, as well as his charging her with endangering the life of her fetus, set into motion a battle between pro-life and pro-choice organizations. A well-meaning Christian family takes her in initially, exposing her to pro-life propaganda films and taking her to protests outside a clinic. After a pro-choice group wins Ruth over and takes her in, the pro-life group ups the ante, trying to entice Ruth to have her baby by offering her $15,000. A member of the pro-choice group matches the sum, but soon after, Ruth has a miscarriage, making the whole spectacle (which is blown up by the media and each warring interest group) completely undercut. Neither group is aware of the miscarriage when Ruth goes to the abortion clinic, takes the $15,000 offered to her, and escapes from the scene, leaving protesters from each side warring behind her.

There are many elements of the film that could be improved. I thought the dialog was clumsy at times, which led to some mediocre acting. Laura Dern is fantastic, though, as the title character, making the character believable.

What impresses me most about the film, though, is it's message about abortion politics. Essentially, Payne's commentary suggests that interest groups on both sides don't really identify with the people they claim to by fighting for; Ruth's interests as a person and her "choice" are undercut by rhetoric and high-minded principles that don't take her situation into account. Payne cleverly implicates BOTH the pro-life and pro-choice factions in this scheme of robbing Ruth from exerting her will. In the end, Ruth takes control of her own destiny, yielding to neither side.

The message of "Citizen Ruth" is more relevant now than ever as pro-choicers face the challenge of a majority conservative supreme court. How will they appeal to the Ruths out there? And for pro-lifers, how would they deal with the consequences of an overturning of Roe v. Wade? Payne's film pointedly asks these questions, and only time will tell how each side will answer.

"Citizen Ruth" is a rare example of a movie that refuses to give you a protagonist you can root for or empathize with. Sure, there are plenty of filmic "anti-heroes", charming rogues and cads and villains you either want to see win or want to see lose. The titular Ruth, played by Laura Dern, is one of few I can think of I didn't want to see at all.

Ruth Stoops is a moronic, drug addled loser. Her only goal in life is money. Her drug of choice - inhalants - seems to have been chosen deliberately: we're familiar with the highly romanticized tales of lives wasted on heroin and cocaine. Spray paint doesn't have the same dubious glamour.

Whereas the filmmakers made the right choice there, it was with the movie's other major motif - abortion - that I think they should have thought longer and harder. It doesn't surprise me that Alexander Payne said the movie isn't really about pro-life or pro-choice, but about fanaticism. However the choice of this topic just cuts too close to the bone for us to take a step back. In order for us to recognize fanaticism, we have to separate ourselves from the issue and see those involved for what they are. Whereas both sides of the debate in this movie are clearly fanatics, few will be able to watch it without agreeing with one side or the other. I think the filmmakers should have chosen a topic that is less controversial.

I return now to the movie's protagonist. I guess the filmmakers should be congratulated for refusing to make her likable or even interesting. In doing so, however, they have demonstrated why so few movies take that route: her company starts to wear a little thin. You keep looking for a shade of humanity in her cruddy exterior, but no, there's none to be found.

This movie was basically a warm-up for Payne's first triumph, 1999's "Election", which also really had no likable characters, but enough wit and directorial flair to keep it going.

This is a hard movie to interpret. Not the story, but the intended message, because surely there is one.

The story is straightforward enough. Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern)is a drug-abusing, loud-mouthed, selfish girl who has had a couple of illegitimate kids and is now pregnant again. She's been in and out of jail and rehab programs so often she can't remember how many times. Now she's picked up for sniffing glue again and the court puts her back in the slams and advises her, strongly, to abort this new child.

But she is bailed out by a devout working-class family (Kurtwood Smith, Mary Kay Place) who want to save her and her baby. They're sincere enough. They have a tough time scraping together the $400 bail. The home they take her to is a stifling nest of conventional religiosity and hypocrisy. They don't smoke, don't drink, don't swear, say grace before each meal, and their teen-age daughter sneaks out at night to get drunk and party. And hubby can't stop himself from eying Dern's nubile figure when she's careless with her garb. ("You know, I used to be quite a sinner," he tells her while they lie side by side in his old bed.) The family introduce her to a "counseling agency" who do their best to talk her into saving her baby. The medical staff congratulate her on her pregnancy and show her a doll about the size of the fetus she's now carrying. ("It's even got a little thing on it," she says. "Sure, because it's a boy doll!") They show her a movie of dead, aborted children, which compares abortion to Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and she winds up changing her mind. "Gee, I slept on dumpsters. Maybe I slept on some babies." But she's spirited away by a pro-abortion spy (Swoozie Kurtz) who has been undercover in The Baby Savers movement, and she's taken home to be brainwashed by Kurtz and her girlfriend, who apparently worship Selene, the moon, because they keen a kind of folk song at the night sky. They massage the acupuncture points in her bare feet while they propagandize her and Dern loves it. "Do my spleen again." So she decides to abort.

But then The Baby Savers come up with a $15,000 check if she decides to save the baby. So she decides to have the baby. And then a Vietnam vet among the pro-choicers matches the reward, so she decides to abort. By this time the issue has become nation-wide and has drawn in the leader of the Baby Savers, Burt Reynolds, who ups the ante to $27,000 if Dern will save the baby. So she decides to save the baby. (During all this, she's been swilling and sniffing everything in sight.) I won't give away the ending except to say that Ruth steals some money and makes off with it before anyone notices. Final shot: Dern marching off alone into the distance, accompanied by a triumphant theme, strong-willed, street savvy, a bag full of cash slung over her determined shoulder, still lacking in the frontal lobes that might allow her to plan for a future.

It's a satirical look at the abortion debate, and more black than comedic, although it has its laugh lines. Nobody comes off at all well, except maybe the Vietnam amputee who sees through Ruth and offers his $15,000 anyway. That is, she's been planning on how she might spend the windfall. She'll make a down payment on a new house, then buy a new car, then maybe travel to Europe. The vet listens to this then tells her it's baloney, that both of them know the $15,000 will last her about three days.

The cast is littered with familiar names, none of whom do an outstanding job but all of whom are competent enough. As a stimulus-hungry, self-destructive, mentally challenged teen-ager, Laura Dern is an attractive and sexy young woman but not a teen-ager. Burt Reynolds brings his usual role distance to the job. He proudly introduces the first boy he ever saved by adopting, the boy who's now about fifteen, the boy who fetches the ice for Reynolds' drinks, the boy who now massages Reynolds' tanned and muscular shoulders on command.

But where is the movie headed? I was all in favor of the pro-abortionist lesbians but I don't think that's what was intended. Most black comedies at least give you someone to root for, even if he's not victorious. "Dr. Strangelove" was a black comedy, too, but President Merkin Muffley at least was sane and rational. Here, the Vietnam vet's role is far too minor for us to identify with him in any way. This reminds me more of Tom Wolf's "Bonfire of the Vanities." Everybody in it is stupid and/or rotten. And the intentions of the producers is ambiguous, along the lines of one of Randy Newman's songs -- "I Love L.A." or "Short People". Is Newman really defiantly saying he loves Los Angeles, or is he kidding? Maybe the message is that of the Buddha, who was a very practical man. All things in moderation. Avoid zealotry. An excess of passion always leads to disappointment and pain in one form or another.

Keeping my views on abortion out of this review I am focusing on the movie itself.

What I like about this movie aside from the acting and dialogue is that it's not really trying to get you to pick a side on abortion so much as it's informing you of what both pro-choice and pro-life have to offer while offering some humor and insight along the way.

This was Alexander Payne's first film as director and while he would get better a few years later with Election, About Schmidt and Sideways which remains his best film in my opinion (I still haven't seen a few of his others so my opinion may change later) this was a very brave start and one that overall works.

However it is a far from perfect film. While Dern and the cast are all excellent and the pacing is fine for about 70 or so minutes the last 25 or so minutes were so slow and the movie had run out of gas for me completely which weakened it significantly.

Dern does some of her best acting to be sure, Burt Reynolds gives a cringey but very well acted cameo near the end and Kurtwood Smith and Mary Kay Place are good as the pro life people who enter Dern's life.

Another complaint I have in addition to the painfully slow ending is David Graf's disappointingly small performance as the judge. Of course most audiences will remember Graf as Tackleberry from Police Academy but I liked seeing him in this smaller and more serious role.

However I was expecting to see him in another scene or two but he is only in the movie about three or so minutes.

Other than Tackleberry I just really liked him as a character actor in general. Payne did well utilizing him in a more serious role albeit one that should have been expanded.

If you're thinking of passing on this movie out of concern that it will go against your views about abortion my advice is go into it with an open mind as to me it seems more just to make you think about both sides of the argument versus just trying to get you to take a side.

I like that neutral approach and overall recommend the film.

Payne made better movies but aside from it's ending this is a pretty impressive directorial debut.

This was supposed to be a comedy, but I really did not find it funny. It wasn't really black comedy as we were not laughing at death, and Ruth's situation was so appalling and stuffed up that we felt put off by her as opposed to seeing it funny.

The movie opens with Ruth having sex with a guy and she isn't even enjoying it, so she is booted out. She is not allowed to see her kids, and everybody seems to hate her, and she is hooked on inhaling paint fumes. She lands up in gaol, and is charged with the crime of endangering a fetus, but can get off by having an abortion.

This is where the comedy is supposed to come out for two groups, the pro and anti-abortionists. They make the anti-abortionists right wing fundamental Christians, and the pro-abortionists are bizarre, moon worshiping lesbians with huge Vietnam vets protecting them. Both are trying to force Ruth to follow their lead, but in the end she manages to escape. The one good thing about the movie, is they leave her walking away. She has not changed, nor has she redeemed herself - she simply has a choice now. She can choose whether to have the baby or not. Personally, she is probably going to abort it because she still has the charge hanging over her head.

As I said, this is a disturbing movie in the way they try to make it a comedy about a person you really don't want to laugh about. She is alone, selfish, and addicted to drugs, and in the end, you really don't want to get to know any more about her.