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Ruth (Laura Dern) is a young homeless glue-addicted street junkie, who is arrested again completely doped. The justice realizes that she is pregnant for the fifth time, and the judge offers her the option of an abortion. Ruth is released under the custody of a family and sooner she is involved in a pro-choice vs. pro-life (called 'The Babysavers') dispute. This is the first time I have seen this movie and it is a very acid social criticism of the American society hypocrisy regarding the abortion theme. The story does not spare any side, showing hypocrites persons on both sides. The pro-life are showed as religious fanatics and narrow-minded persons, the deranged family who lodges Ruth has a the father with sexual attraction in Laura and the mother a fanatic who does not see the behavior of her own daughter. The pro-choice group is showed as homosexual, but also faking a situation. In common, all of them are radicals hypocrites. And Ruth indeed is not caring whether she is going to have her fifth baby or not, abusing of drugs and alcohol and only interested in the money offered by both sides. And the rights of the citizen Ruth is the less important issue for both sides. Laura Dern has one of her best interpretations and in the very beginning of the movie, I did not recognize her. I believe she was not indicated for an Oscar due to the polemic theme of abortion. The performance of the cast and the direction are also excellent. My vote is seven, but maybe this movie deserves a better ranking after watching it for the second time.

Title (Brazil): 'Ruth em Questão' (Ruth in Question')

Laura Dern gives what should have been an oscar-winning performance in this satire of the abortion controversy. However this movie is not for the main stream. She plays a homeless drug user and a user period. Not a nice person. She has four kids in three different places. The first scene depicts her trying to hit up her ex for money displaying only a token concern for her kids. But by the end of the movie you kinda like her (well, almost... you still would never let her come to your house). Anyway when she is picked up for the 16th time that year by the cops for sniffing household stuff (anything she can find: glue, paint, brake fluid...), the authorities find out that she is pregnant. The DA charges her with criminal endangerment of the fetus, but hints that if she has an abortion the charge will go away. While in the city jail she meets up with the Baby Savers and a tug-of-war ensues between them and the Right-To-Choose people. The portrayal of both sides is so devastatingly accurate that I doubt either side would know they're being lampooned. This movie rates with Cold Turkey and Drop Dead Gorgeous for its cynical, but hilarious portrait of American Life.

Unlike every other young American filmmaker, buzzing like moths around the asthmatic short guy from Little Italy, Alexander Payne has a pleasingly atypical role model: Luis Bunuel. His brilliant ELECTION sets down a number of Bunuel tropes in the chain restaurants and badly lit high schools of Omaha, Nebraska, and his first feature, CITIZEN RUTH, is even closer to the wall-eyed master's bone.

The heroine, played by Laura Dern, is named Ruth Stoops, and that's an understatement. Ruth begins the picture as a dumpster-diving skank whose preoccupations are birthing bastards and huffing glue. Through a BEING THERE-ish chain of circumstances, Ruth finds herself in the hands of a family of Baby Savers (Payne's version of Operation Rescue), and then a squadron of mostly lesbian, bourgeois, goddess-worshiping, Frida-Kahlo-T-shirt-wearing pro-choice activists. Though the movie cannily found a home with the Sundance crowd as a "satire" of both sides of the "abortion debate," the topicality is strictly surface. CITIZEN RUTH is a straight-up-Bunuelian demonstration of the hundred facets of human mendacity and venality, cloaking their shivering skins in the warm fabric of Morals. It's a cheerfully made thesis movie about the universality of hypocrisy.

Payne has a curious, sure, light, on-the-money touch. Every detail you notice--from a Baby Saver mom's Tupperware samovar of cherry Kool-Ade, to Kurtwood Smith's Sav-On uniform (with a button that sadly screams "Ask Me!")--is ever so slightly exaggerated and perfectly true. Payne's rendering of his home town Omaha, its wan, angry Christians, and the kinda-gay, kinda-liberal-artsy interlopers, makes the Coen Brothers look both pizzazzier and much nastier. The single-mindedness of the movie is oddly pleasing when it's mated with such a certain, gingerly approach. (Payne's tastes run gratifyingly wide: his jokes, and his music, seem derived from the works of James L. Brooks.) There's a two-dimensionality about CITIZEN RUTH that makes it less deeply satisfying than ELECTION, but this is one smart filmmaker. As the millennium rolls in, the likes of Wes Anderson and Kevin Smith will be gagging on his dust.

Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern) is paint-huffing homeless white trash. She has four kids but doesn't have custody of any of them. She goes to her brother to ask for money and he offers $15. She passes out in public and gets arrested. She's pregnant again. The angry judge overcharges her and she's pressured to get an abortion. In jail, she is befriended by Diane Siegler (Swoosie Kurtz) and her team of religious pro-life protesters. Norm (Kurtwood Smith) and Gail Stoney (Mary Kay Place) bail them out and take Ruth into their home. The Stoneys have two kids, rebellious Cheryl (Alicia Witt) and Matt. They take Ruth to a fake clinic to talk her out of the abortion and make her a media case for their group "The Baby Savers". Ruth struggles with her addition and her aversion for notoriety. Diane is actually a pro-choice spy and helps her get away from the Stoneys. Diane calls in Harlan (M.C. Gainey), her lesbian partner Rachel (Kelly Preston), and other pro-choice activists. Her abortion becomes a national issue, and the two sides bring their national leaders Jessica Weiss (Tippi Hedren) and Blaine Gibbons (Burt Reynolds).

Alexander Payne tackles this divisive issue with humor. It skewers both side although the pro-lifers get the greater ridicule. The tricky subject matter is tough to get right and the humor is hard to calibrate. I don't think this is funny for everybody. Laura Dern delivers a complicated and endearing character. The level of difficulty is very high and Payne navigates it with great skills.

Alexander Payne, from personal opinion, is a very talented director and writer. With the exception of his recent film 'Downsizing' (his most ambitious film with such a great concept but underwhelming in execution), all his films range from very good to outstanding, especially 'Sideways'.

'Citizen Ruth' was his first full-length film, and while not his best or one of them (perhaps his second or third weakest, 'The Descendants' while still very good is also a lesser effort) there is a lot to admire. 'Citizen Ruth' may lack the viciousness and poignancy of his later and particularly best work, when Payne had properly found his feet and fine-tuned his style, hence why it is not rated as highly as much as them, but his talent for directing and writing for so early on is very much evident.

The film is notable for handling a very difficult subject matter (abortion), but uniquely not taking sides and shows both sides of the argument rather than making a judgement on whether it's good or bad. This was a very brave and daring decision and attitude to take, and one that those who have been through it themselves in particular will appreciate and relate with, there is nothing to be offended by.

Even with this difficult and sensitive subject, 'Citizen Ruth' manages to be entertaining in a darkly amusing way but doing it tastefully and taking it seriously still. In typical Payne style, it is also very thought-provoking and honest with plenty to say and saying it with tact.

Payne directs with skill, even if his direction became more refined later. 'Citizen Ruth' is very nicely filmed, if not one of his most visually beautiful or striking films ('Sideways', 'The Descendants' and especially 'Nebraska' fit this distinction more). The story is compelling and balanced, if not always sharp in pacing in the latter stages.

Similarly, Payne gets the best out of his actors. The whole cast are top notch, but this is sensational Laura Dern's, in one of her best and boldest performances, film.

Overall, hugely impressive and brave. 8/10 Bethany Cox