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USA 1996
Directed by
Alexander Payne
104 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
2.5 stars

Citizen Ruth

Alexander Payne’s debut feature which he co-wrote with Jim Taylor starts promisingly but fairly quickly morphs into a not-so-funny Waiting For Guffman (also 1996) style of lampooning before petering out.

In the central role Laura Dern plays Ruth Stoops, homeless white trash with a penchant for inhaling DIY chemical concoctions who has been arrested sixteen times for "hazardous vapour inhalation". She has given birth to four children, all of whom have been taken away from her by the State.  After being jailed for getting high on patio sealant, she learns that she's pregnant again. The judge tells her that she will be charged with criminal endangerment of her foetus, but tells Ruth that if she gets an abortion, he'll reconsider her situation.

Citizen Ruth opens with Frank Sinatra crooning “All the Way” as the title character lays back on a mattress being humped by some low-life in a run-down apartment then follows her as she is unceremoniously thrown out by the low-life and inveigles a few dollars out of her brother (I assume) before she ends up in jail in the above situation.  It’s a wickedly bleak opener and Dern is compellingly repugnant as the woman with no interest in life beyond her own gratification.  But Ruth's case becomes a cause célèbre for local pro-life activists, the Baby Savers, run by an evangelical husband-and-wife team (Kurtwood Smith and Mary Kay Place) and their pro-choice opponents headed by a lesbian feminist (Swoosie Kurtz). At this point most of the bleakness evaporates to be replaced by a so-so satire of both sides of the abortion debate.

Dern does an excellent job with her thoroughly unlikeable yet believably human character. Unfortunately there is no real development of that character as she gets pushed and pulled between the opposing camps and the satire of the world in which she finds herself doesn’t amount to much. One can’t help but compare the film to Trainspotting released the same year which does so much more with comparable material. Only Burt Reynolds as the smarmy leader of the pro-lifers stands out but the script gives him little to do.

Whilst Payne, unsurprisingly, tends to favour the pro-choicers (the pro-lifers get the bulk of the mockery) ultimately he has both sides of the debate using Ruth for their own agendas and in that respect is commendably realistic about  human nature (once again compare the ending with that of Trainspotting).  

 

 

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