Citizen Ruth (1996)

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.

This movie seemed so realistic, it was almost like being involved in it. After watching it over 20 times I still see small real things, like when the Judge asked to see Ruth in his office, he pushed to door shut, and immediately, for his own protection, opened it a crack before telling her "If you want to see a doctor while in jail...you can go". He didn't want that to get out but it did. I can sympathize with the Judge, he wanted to save the state a million dollars over the next 18 years. Mr. Payne really had it together and didn't miss a beat. He was slick too, for at the end he made Ruth the "bad guy" and was able to keep the pro-choice and baby savers evenly balanced, not giving way to either. Norm worked in a hardware store, and like Harlan, was very realistic. Every person seemed so real...and I think some of the cops WERE real. I first saw this movie on TV by accident, nothing else on. The second time I taped it. This movie made me go and rent or buy every Laura Dern movie I could find. This is my favorite movie.

The more I view Payne's pictures, the more I see them as a kind of Requiem, or Elegy, for humanity in the setting of Nebraska and the young and old who populate Omaha. Payne's first 3 films are perhaps valentines to his birthplace. I went back to review Citizen Ruth and About Schmitt, and found myself amazed in the subtle execution of loss and despair in the stories and characters. Alexander Payne has a good thing going in his work. In Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt we perhaps have a trilogy that arcs through the life cycle of a human being.. Citizen Ruth...conception, birth and childhood. Ruth seems to embody all three...physically and emotionally (pregnant, but child-like in mind and action). The subtle sub-plots involving the child of "Life Savers" Norm and Gail Stoney (played by Sebastian Anzaldo III) is possibly the saddest depiction of a loss of innocence I have ever seen in a film, worthy of Stanley Kubrick (who filmed a similar theme in the first half of Full Metal Jacket). When Ruth hits the child, suddenly the wind is also knocked out of the film. The illusion of "choice" in the conception and birth process of mortal existence is all over this film. Election...youth and the middle aged... The youth struggle to grow up and the middle aged reach for a happiness lost in youth. I think Reese Witherspoon's character, Tracy Flick, goes through a steep learning curve, a process of change and understanding that benefits her and helps her come to terms with her loneliness, however damaged she may still be. She actually comes out better than the other characters IMO. Mr. McCallister, in contrast, spirals out of control...his inner creepy crawlies, hidden in the dark corners of a classroom for years, are suddenly brought out by the searing light of Tracy Flick. About Schmidt...old age and death. Regrets and redemption by proxy (the best gifts can be given and received in ways that we can never imagine...without us even knowing about it). Death is seen quite early in the film...and the bell tolls for Warren's life(as the clock strikes 5pm to announce Warren's retirement). While Warren is going through crisis and he desperately tries to "make a difference" by saving his daughter from marrying a loser, a 6 year old child in Africa is deeply affected by Warren's $22 a month donation. Warren is redeemed? I think Warren is redeemed after his Wedding reception speech earlier...it is also his burial...his last will and testament. The 6 year child's drawing is a sign that the "circle of life" will begin again...brand spanking' new. These films are so amazing I feel as if I'm participating in each. Great cinema.

I loved this movie, a sly satire about a beautiful but dim-witted drifter who gets pregnant and finds herself accidentally scooped up as symbol by both sides in the abortion controversy. Laura Dern makes Ruth an irresistible anti-heroine, not only sexy and fun but poignant and lonely and even lovable by the very end.At first, with Ruth in rags and in tears, the movie is not much fun. It's a bit like TRAINSPOTTING, about a drug addict living on the street. But Laura Dern's Ruth is not a smug smart-aleck like Renton. She doesn't keep telling us she's cool or hip or better than us. She just lives her life, and we see how helpless and in need of rescue she really is. Where the film picks up steam is where we see how corrupt and hypocritical her "rescuers" really are.The script really points out that all political activists are users at heart. Just like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, where the teenage hoodlum Alex is first brainwashed by the state and then "rescued" by radicals who snuff him out at the first opportunity, so here Ruth is pushed back and forth by Christians and feminists who show equal disregard for her thoughts and feelings. The fact that she herself is lazy, weak-willed, incurably dishonest, and deeply selfish, only adds to the fun. Ruth's need for pleasure and escape makes her a natural to become a drug addict, which of course she is. But it's also noticeable that she plunges headlong into each passing pleasure that comes her way. Watching her snore in blissful contentment in her first real bed in months, or howl with pleasure during a sexy feminist foot massage, you can't help but enjoy her zest for life. Ruth may be weak-willed and timid, but at least she has her human pleasures. The people around her are fanatical robots.At the same time, Ruth's story goes beyond A CLOCKWORK ORANGE into a much more American story of a loner who must choose sides in what really amounts to a civil war. The film brilliantly captures how abortion tears the town in half, just like slavery in the pre Civil War years. Ruth is caught in the middle, just like Tobey Maguire's Jake Roedel in Ang Lee's RIDE WITH THE DEVIL. The difference is that Ruth finds a way to fight on her own terms. By the end she's no longer a puppet, and you feel oddly impressed by her final get away and almost slapstick escape.(SPOILER ALERT) This is one of the few movies I have ever seen where the "take the money and run" ending really feels like a triumph. Note that this is EXACTLY what happens in TRAINSPOTTING. While the straight people make fools of themselves, a junkie walks away with a bundle of cash. But here it feels totally liberating, and fun. With Renton it was spoiled with his tiresome monologue, bragging about how he's "just like us." No, Ruth is just like us. She's not always able to say what she feels, but she has human needs and she learns from her mistakes.CITIZEN RUTH is a great movie, and a real triumph for Laura Dern.