Citizen Ruth (1996)

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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.

There are 49 reviews and no one mentioned the ending credits? Maybe nobody waits for them to roll. The first 1/2 has typical end of the movie music. Then there is the loud sound of a cassette turning over. The cassette she was playing earlier about how to make money plays with lots of pseudo advanced theories about investing money from a small nest egg. Then the tape jams and breaks and the movie ends. Too funny. My Dad picked this movie. Reading the short description given of a comedy about both sides of the abortion debate I was expecting the worst. However it is a dark comedy that pulls off its subject quite well, making fun of everyone. That is rare for a movie made in the last 10 years. A movie such as this works best when the main characters don't come off too stereotypically. The movie only partly succeeds with this. This type of movie is so uncommon nowadays though that I give it a 9.

I watched this after watching Election several times and listening to Alexander Payne's commentary for that film. He keeps promoting his own work (this film) throughout so I thought "Why not?" I like to see good directors' early works. This is well made and well acted but I just didn't connect with the story. I think maybe it's because I'm from Britain where abortion is a non-issue and the main theme of this film is abortion v.s. essentially religion and pro-life. Since this is not a conflict where I'm from, I found it difficult to care. It's a bit like the original Alfie; a British film that came out 30 years earlier and tells the same story but with more weight. Just watch Election again and save yourself the hassle.

Laura Dern is one of my favorite actresses just for her work in Inland Empire and her stunning work in Enlightened. This film usually gets the least mentions within Payne's filmography and is probably considered his weakest, and so I was surprised and enjoyed it a hell of a lot, especially coming off of a big disappointment. Like Election, it's definitely more in the comedy-territory and while, again, it may not amount to all that much, it's still a hell of an enjoyable ride. And, of course, Laura Dern is great, she's proved she can play this sort of ditzy, unaware character and she nails it. This is definitely recommended and rather underrated