Themes: Class Differences, Culture Clash, Going Straight
Main Cast: Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Kurtwood Smith, Mary Kay Place, Kelly Preston
Release Year: 1996
Country: US
Run Time: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The divisive issue of abortion is at the center of Citizen Ruth, a political satire that attempts to subject both pro-choice and pro-life forces to equal ridicule. Laura Dern portrays Ruth Stoops, an irresponsible, unemployed woman who's addicted to inhaling household chemicals and has becomes pregnant, for the fifth time. After she is arrested for substance abuse, the judge offers to lessen her sentence if Ruth chooses to abort her child. Ruth agrees, but that night she encounters a group of pro-life activists. They take her under their wing, promising to help her, while secretly planning to make her case public as a symbol for the pro-life movement . When Ruth discovers the deception, she takes refuge with a pro-choice group, sparking a media frenzy. Yet Ruth soon finds her new friends are also only interested in her value as a media icon. Realizing she has been used as a pawn in the abortion rights battle, the apolitical Ruth turns the tables, offering to join whoever will give her the best deal. What results is a frantic, comedic session of wheeling-dealing which argues that activists on both sides have become more concerned with waging political warfare than helping women. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
Although little-seen, Citizen Ruth introduced the film world to one of its best new satirists: director Alexander Payne, whose follow-up, Election (1999), won raves for skewering high school politics (indeed, the entire American political system) with dead-on finesse. No less ambitious in his debut, Payne goes after the abortion debate with rawness and vigor, shrewdly refusing to favor either camp. Instead, he exposes the transparent agendas of both sides, getting terrific help from Laura Dern, who plays Ruth Stoops with impressive disregard for audience sympathy. Strung out and utterly amoral, Dern's Ruth is a heroine typical of Payne's caustic wit -- in a landscape devoid of good-hearted impulses, this is the person left to support. It's a courageously unlikable and funny performance by Dern, and she's surrounded by character actors (Kurtwood Smith, Mary Kay Place, Swoosie Kurtz, and even Burt Reynolds) who inhabit their aggressive personality types with relish. What's remarkable about Payne's light touch is that he can craft a totally unsentimental film filled with soulless characters and still manage to leave the viewer feeling kind of bouncy and fulfilled. Citizen Ruth is a strong debut from a bright new talent. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Lisa Beach - Casting, Andrew Stone - Co-producer, Tom McKinley - Costume Designer, Heather Kritzer - First Assistant Director, Jim Taylor - First Assistant Director, Alexander Payne - Director, Kevin Trent - Editor, Rolfe Kent - Composer (Music Score), Jane Ann Stewart - Production Designer, James Glennon - Cinematographer, Cary Woods - Producer, Cathy Konrad - Producer, Jay Patterson - Sound/Sound Designer, Alexander Payne - Screenwriter, Jim Taylor - Screenwriter
The film opens with Ruth Stoops and a man (apparently an ex-boyfriend) having intercourse on a bed in a flophouse, after which he disrespectfully throws her out of the apartment. She later goes to a hardware store to buy patio sealant and huffs it in a paper bag in an alley to get high. Ruth is portrayed as a dumb, inebriated addict, capable of doing nearly anything to get money or drugs.
Ruth has four children, all of whom have been taken from her custody by the state because of her inability to care for them (or even for herself). Her children are scattered among three different homes. Ruth goes to the home of her brother and sister-in-law to sneak a look at two of her children and to beg her brother for money.
After Ruth is arrested for her continuing drug use, she learns that she is pregnant again. The judge, who knows of the situation with Ruth's other offspring, suggests that he will deal with her less harshly if she has an abortion. Through a chance encounter with a group of jailed abortion protesters, Ruth soon finds herself at the center of an escalating battle between people on both sides of the abortion issue. Both sides engage in deceitful tactics to influence Ruth's decision. The pro-life people run a fake abortion clinic, where they actually seek to dissuade patients from receiving the proffered service. The pro-choice people have 'spies' in the pro-life group who spirit Ruth away.
Both sides offer incentives into the thousands of dollars to the hapless and exhilarated woman to secure her promise (less than honorable) that she keep or abort the child. Wise for the dollar, Ruth rampantly encourages the bidding. She becomes the object of a local news and political obsession — a figure of the media whom all want to know: will she or won't she have an abortion?
On the day Ruth is to receive her abortion, she suffers a miscarriage. Going along with the pretense of having the abortion, she proceeds to the clinic to collect $15,000 that has been left there for her by one of the security guards of the clinic who believes in personal freedom. He has personally given her the money, free of organizational sponsorship, to match the bid given by the Pro-Life group, so that she can make her decision without the influence of money. She then breaks out of the clinic by dropping a toilet tank cover on a guard's head and walks by oblivious protesters on both sides. Though she had been on the television news for weeks, none of the picketers on either side pay any attention to her actual presence. Finally standing up, she runs away down the street.
The underlying theme throughout the movie is that political power is often an end in and of itself - it is what political factions of all flavors seek. In this movie, we observe pro-choice and pro-life factions using Ruth to amass greater political influence and all the ancillary perks that go along with it. We come to realize that Ruth is a victim of both sides' "cause," and in fact, she is readily forgotten and ignored.
A running joke in the film is a "Success in Finance" type tape produced by an Amway type company. Ruth takes the tape and studies it to determine what to do with her newfound money.
