"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.

Excellent satire, clever script (of course, Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne wrote it), and a truly funny performance by Laura Dern. I believe Citizen Ruth, which satirizes both sides of the abortion debate, is one of the best films of the 90's. Laura Dern is perfect as the angry, drug-addicted and pregnant Ruth, who becomes a pawn in the political war between professional pro-life and pro-choice activists. Declared an unfit mother by a court, Ruth is encouraged to have an abortion. She is "rescued" by a swarmy, too-nice couple who, of course, turn out to be fanatical pro-lifers. They embark upon a full-fledged campaign to change Ruth's mind, which includes making her watch a film of a fetus being destroyed. As her case gains publicity, she is soon appropriated by the other side. The pro-choicers turn out to be equally fanatical and ideology-driven. Soon Ruth is being offered money by both sides, to either have or abort her baby. What makes the film work so well is the way Ruth's deadpan street attitude sharply contrasts with everyone around her. She is utterly oblivious to the issues and movements which with they are obsessed. This perfectly illustrates the sharp separation that necessarily exists between causes and real life.One of the things I like about this movie is that Payne presents us with sincere activists, who make pretty good points for both sides. And that's where most Americans are; they're not absolutely pro-life nor absolutely pro-choice. But, reaching that point-of-view would take thought, which most rabid activists are incapable of. It's kind of difficult to universally recommend a movie like Citizen Ruth, because of the subject matter. A lot of people will say that abortion is not something you should joke about, and I absolutely agree with them. However, if you can see past the subject of abortion and instead consider this film as a study in herd mentality, I think it can be rewarding.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Pitiful, bedraggled Ruth is a forlorn specimen of hopelessness with more than a dozen arrests for illegal inhalation. She has just been kicked out by her one-night boyfriend and turned away by her fed-up brother-in-law. The arresting cops already know her name. Now she's told she is pregnant. "You've been found to be an unfit mother four times!" a flabbergasted judge tells her. "Uh-uh," Ruth says. "Two times." The judge charges her with "felony criminal endangerment of a fetus," though submits in candor to drop the charges if she'll have an abortion. The displaced good intentions there are nothing compared to the ideological thicket that Ruth wanders into after her case becomes a national battleground for pro- and anti-abortion groups.Citizen Ruth, the feature debut of definitive contemporary film wit Alexander Payne, a filmmaker of rare intelligence who's on the short list of American directors with final cut rights for their films, is a satire with the reckless courage to take on both sides in the abortion debate. There are no positive characters in the film, certainly not Ruth, whose preferred state is oblivion, and who perks up only when both sides start making cash offers. Whereas almost every film has a market in mind, here is a movie with a little something to offend anyone who has a strong opinion on abortion.Who's left to market this movie to? Perhaps those diminishing figures who have a high regard for movies with audacity and sharpness, and do not demand to be gratified and bolstered by the characters on the screen. Some may find it too delineative to compensate more than a single viewing, but nevertheless a stimulating one-time wonder. Others see more ironic fine points upon multiple viewings. This makes it all the more valuable because what satire must do in order to work is take effective shots at both sides of whatever issue it holds to censure.The movie is an arcade of finely honed satiric sketches. Thrown into jail, Ruth finds herself sharing the same cell with hymn-singing "Baby Savers" who have been jailed after a protest at an abortion clinic. She is promptly taken under the wings of Kurtwood Smith and Mary Kay Place, who bring her home to an innocent milieu, innocent, i.e., until she finds their son's airplane glue. Gail oscillates between worship of life and acid disputes with her teenage daughter, who sooner or later helps Ruth slip away to a party.One of the Baby Savers is Swoozie Kurtz, who uncovers herself as a mole for the pro-choice side, and whisks Ruth off to the wilderness retreat she shares with her lesbian lover, Rachel, who sings to the moon. They organize for Ruth to have an abortion, however already the Baby Savers have issued a national alert, the network crews are camped out in the parking lot, and the national leaders for both sides have flown into Tulsa to make their stands.Shot in Nebraska just like Payne's exceedingly brilliant subsequent films Election and About Schmidt, Payne has a good eye for the character qualities of fanatics with the compulsion to control other people's lives. The leader of the pro-choice side, played by Tippi Hedren, is rendered as so hip and shrewd that you know it's a disguise for indescribable skeletons in the closet. And the leader of the pro-lifers is played by Burt Reynolds as a sloganeering fraud who glorifies the "American family values" crap while retaining a boy toy on his payroll.There is nerve in the determination to make Ruth an unredeemed dope-head whose sole impulse is to go for the cash. Though unjustifiably careless and ignorant as Ruth is, she becomes extremely funny via Payne's fitting of her into such incongruous surroundings as much as Laura Dern's hysterical performance. Attesting herself as a superb physical comedian, the in-shape and gangly Dern lashes and yells her way through the catastrophe that explodes over her quandary. And yet with momentous satirical elegance, this definitive sleeper watches how both sides exploit this oblivious nonentity's soul, or lack thereof, in a variety of endeavors to forcibly convey their stance to the American public. I have misgivings that the two sides in the debate would in reality undertake a bidding war, but that's what satire is for: To take reality and broaden it into farce.The movie sheds light on the ways in which mainstream films condition us to count on formula endings. Most movies are made with the credence that no one in the audience can be counted on to think about more than one concept at a time, at the very most. I'm happily bowled over when it arises that there will be no "good side" and "bad side" in the mêlée over Ruth, and astonished when it seems that the movie will not turn up securely with a resolution to satisfy everyone. Some states of affairs, Payne appear to be contending, just cannot be reconciled to everyone's liking. Perhaps, for some viewers, that will make this not a comedy at all.

There is something about Citizen Ruth that keeps me coming back to it. I must have seen it 30 times and haven't tired of it yet. It is genuine and the people are so amazingly real. It's almost as if some of my neighbours seem just like the characters in the film. That says a lot in my opinion. The Mid-west is a land that holds a special place in the American psyche. I can literally count on my hands the number of films that truly capture its spirit. Citizen Ruth is one of those films. From scenes in the hardware store to large rear wheel drive Fords, everything fits perfectly. This film captures a place called Omaha which for better or worse Hollywood largely ignores. It also treats a controversial topic like abortion in a thoughtful manner. Excellent film. Highly recommended.10 out of 10 stars.