Citizen Ruth

A jaundiced, blackly-comic look a la Preston Sturges at the abortion debate through the bleary eyes of Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern), a scrawny, ignorant, white-trash huffer who finds herself at the middle of a media whirlwind. Dern turns in a no-holds-barred performance as the pathetic Ruth, who doesn't want to be a mother, doesn't want to go to jail, doesn't want to be saved and certainly doesn't want to be a symbol -- all she really wants is a paper bag, a tube of airplane glue and a nice alley where she can have a party in her mind. Writer-director Alexander Payne's audacious debut takes what could be the stuff of which earnest problem movies are made and opts for s...