Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Citizen Ruth (1996)



I enjoy Alexander Payne's work but I don't think he's made anything that's been truly great since Election and Citizen Ruth (I won't go into why I think Sideways was so overrated). Laura Dern plays Ruth Stoops, who finds herself being manipulated by both pro-life and pro-choice activists in order to further their causes, after she becomes pregnant and makes it known that she is considering an abortion. The film deserves a lot of credit for satirizing both groups equally as well as finding great comedy in such a troubling (and common) dilemma. It explores issues that recent movies dealing with pregnancy have more or less shied away from, and I think it's refreshing and even funnier for doing so. I only really knew Laura Dern from David Lynch's world, and I always liked her, but she is absolutely perfect here and I would really like to see more of her. I just wish it were not going to be in Jurassic Park IV.
IMDB

1 comment:

Bea said...

Thanks for the info, I'll check the film out.