The moment Ruth Stoops storms onto the screen, shouting profanities and smashing a car window, I knew she was the woman for me. Ruth (Laura Dern) is a strung-out, hot-tempered drifter with a warped set of priorities. Lugging a broken TV set and a duffel bag, she pillages an ex-boyfriend’s car for pills and stops by her brother’s house for drug money. After a calculated performance of sobs, she takes off with $15 and heads straight for the hardware store, where she stocks up on paint thinner. What follows is her 16th arrest for “illegal inhalation” and the news that she is pregnant – again.
Citizen Ruth is the only Alexander Payne film that hasn’t been nominated for an Academy Award. A longtime fan of his work, I wasn’t even aware of the film until a few years ago. It’s the Payne film that nobody talks about in interviews and profiles of the director. It didn’t succeed at the box office ($285,112 domestic gross) and its prickly subject matter (abortion) remains a nationally debated issue. But the film’s under-the-radar status is partly what makes rediscovering it such a delight. Citizen Ruth is wickedly funny, Dern gives a phenomenal performance and Payne is true to his singular, darkly comic vision, enacting a satire that’s as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
Upon hearing that a federal employee suggests that Ruth get an abortion, Norm and Gail (Kurtwood Smith and Mary Kay Place) bail her out of jail. They might sing Bible hymns and say “oopsy daisy,” but their motivations are suspect. They want to use Ruth as a symbol for anti-choice propaganda. When the pro-choice renegades kidnap Ruth and take her into their home, they massage her feet while lecturing in Women’s Studies: “It is always women like you who are the most victimized by anti-choice: indigent women, third-world women, colored women…” Ruth, lying on the couch, interrupts. “I’m not a colored woman.” Dern’s deadpan delivery is spot-on.
Ruth’s formal education doesn’t surpass the third grade level but she’s smart enough to know she’s being used as a pawn on both sides. When she sees the evening news footage of Norm and Gail sugar-coating her story in their favor, Ruth is livid. She gets on the phone and tells Gail, “I ain’t no fuckin’ telegram bitch.”
For all the ignorance she spews, Ruth is a remarkably sympathetic character. Part of this has to do with Payne’s distinctly Midwestern sensibility. As Payne remarked, “To say something bad about someone, to caricaturize someone, but then to go, ‘Yeah, but God love ’em,’ that might be something particularly Midwestern.” Indeed, from the bleak hallways of Election to the fluorescent-lit office of About Schmidt, Payne has always had a knack for the heartland. One of the joys of Citizen Ruth lies in its mise en scéne. Norm and Gail have tchotchkes, a squeaky pullout and a pitcher of Kool-Aid on the dinner table. Ruth carries a Walkman and wears a sweatshirt with cartoon animals. In the home of the lesbian activists, there are antique lamps, feminist literature and at least one mug of tea in someone’s hand at all times.
In light of the noteworthy films he went on to make, it’s enlightening to look back and see how Payne’s style was still finding its way. He hovers awkwardly behind Dern and at one point she looks directly into the camera, a dramatic device he would later drop. His collaboration with Dern, however, is comedy gold. Giving a deft physical performance, Dern falls, climbs out of windows and lies face-flat against the ground while Payne films it all with grace and obvious care for his lead actress.
Dark comedy is hard. It lives in situations that are usually not funny at all and it depends on a steadfast commitment to those truly grim elements. Citizen Ruth came and went, and perhaps rightly so. As Payne once said, “I don’t think about the home where my films will land,” and that uncompromising attitude toward his art comes through here. And thank gosh. Citizen Ruth is a bizarre story made timeless by its trenchant sense of humor and unwillingness to give in to Hollywood expectations. But don’t listen to me, See it for yourself. “I ain’t no fuckin’ telegram bitch.”