friedfysh
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.
Red_Identity
Laura Dern is one of my favorite actresses just for her work in Inland Empire and her stunning work in Enlightened. This film usually gets the least mentions within Payne's filmography and is probably considered his weakest, and so I was surprised and enjoyed it a hell of a lot, especially coming off of a big disappointment. Like Election, it's definitely more in the comedy-territory and while, again, it may not amount to all that much, it's still a hell of an enjoyable ride. And, of course, Laura Dern is great, she's proved she can play this sort of ditzy, unaware character and she nails it. This is definitely recommended and rather underrated
punishmentpark
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!
Yasemin Akdeniz
I have to applaud this movie for being so neutral on the issue and showing us the hypocrisy and the cheap tricks and the inner contradictions present on both sides of the issue.Being what I call "a sane pro-lifer in pursuit of a consistent body of bioethics", at first I was somewhat upset by the fact that the movie only portrayed the two prevailing opposite camps regarding the issue of abortion, with presumably atheist lesbians (who, of course, turn out to be goddess adoring pseudo-pagans) with their snobby and self-righteous rhetoric about freedom to choose all the while they try to control Ruth's body on the one hand, and the apparently prudish, sexually repressed, and oh, of course, hypocritical born-again Christians on the other. But then I figured, even though Ruth was the not so intelligent, politically incorrect, irresponsible, glue-huffing character who didn't seem to have any self-declared ethical concern for the issue, it was really through her naive outbursts that the movie seemed to point to a need for a more honest and human approach. What I loved the most, however, was the end scene where Ruth escaped the abortion clinic with all the money in the bag and no one even noticed. It really summed up the whole point of the movie for me - that no one really saw her - not just then, not ever at all. Everyone was so caught up in their own hysteria that it had never been about Ruth at all. You won't get bored with this movie. It's funny, it's honest, and the pace is consistent throughout.
AD
