Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

There are 49 reviews and no one mentioned the ending credits? Maybe nobody waits for them to roll. The first 1/2 has typical end of the movie music. Then there is the loud sound of a cassette turning over. The cassette she was playing earlier about how to make money plays with lots of pseudo advanced theories about investing money from a small nest egg. Then the tape jams and breaks and the movie ends. Too funny. My Dad picked this movie. Reading the short description given of a comedy about both sides of the abortion debate I was expecting the worst. However it is a dark comedy that pulls off its subject quite well, making fun of everyone. That is rare for a movie made in the last 10 years. A movie such as this works best when the main characters don't come off too stereotypically. The movie only partly succeeds with this. This type of movie is so uncommon nowadays though that I give it a 9.

One of the best political satires to deal with the extremely volatile subject of abortion, first time director Alexander Payne gave a powerhouse first film to his repertoire with this bitterly acid black comedy. What I think everyone appreciates is that both sides of this debate are shown in equally unpleasant terms, but not exactly unrealistic ones. The conservative branch are a set of violent and mean spirited protesters, but they also have women who regret their own abortions, and people who sincerely try to help the less fortunate. The liberal side is characterized as a set of lesbian leaning protesters and a freedom fighting mercenary who care about the right to choose. In the middle of this blood sport for the sake of creation is the character of Ruth (Dern), who doesn't care about the politics that make her center stage in a tumultuous feud. Instead of caring about the sanctity of human life, or about the freedom to choose, she cares about what is best for her. She makes the film enjoyable because she cares about very little except getting a lot of money and getting high behind a convenience store. It's really interesting how each side is fighting for her rights in their own way, trying to give her the freedom to choose and yet both leaning towards a different end-game, and yet she only wants to know what's best for herself. It's this selfish attitude that makes for the best moments, especially because there isn't any morale and certainly not any lessons learned from her experiences. Ruth is continually given the chance to do right, but every time she enables her formal bad behavior so she can get away clean. This film illustrates that human choice precedes morals, intellectual discussion, and politics, and that human choice is subjective based on who the person is. I think this film is good for anyone, on either side of the political spectrum, not for educational purposes, but because it works as a great character study as well as satire for its own sake.

I know the best Idea for a new Trailer would be to feature the Actors like Red from That 70's Show and Adeline From Big Love and you know the rest. The comedy is hidden in the fact that this movie was before the kind of comedy that is out today. I just watched it again the other day cause I remember this movie from long time ago and I felt like it should of been made last year. It has some flaws but it old what do you expect! I like this movie, and had to share it with my friends and family. I also like that it's a crazy story and pushes boundaries. would like to see more opinions about this movie cause some people don't like that kind of thing.

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.