Best movie ever!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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.

Alexander Payne's debut feature film, and it's right on the money. Big kudos to the extraordinary performance of the wonderful Laura Dern, which really lifts 'Citizen Ruth' to a higher plan; how she puts both humor and drama into the role of an often deliriously haphazard, but also very headstrong junkie is pure craftsmanship.There are plenty of other actors that make great contributions as well, such as Kurtwood Smith and M.C. Gainey, while other roles are mostly pretty decent to simply adequate. The other main character (beside Dern) in this film is actually really the simple, but no less brilliant baring of a thorny issue, wherein two parties - pro and con - are ruthlessly portrayed. It's a bold choice to choose such an approach, but with the clever way of building up the plot and keeping drama and humor tightly tugging at both ends of it, Payne makes a truly clean getaway. Kudos (again, see my recent review for 'Election')!And finally, it's worth mentioning that the Nebraska settings, the clothing, and the overall (mostly bleak) look of the film really put in an extra ingredient to make this so much more true to life than your average movie. And watch out for those weird little shots, like the one where Laura Dern is checking out her leg in the bathtub, each time with the other eye closed. Cinematographic details of pure beauty!

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.