Why Alexander Payne's Citizen Ruth Has a 'Devastating' Relevance in 2022

In June, the United States Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. The reversal of abortion rights spurred many to reach out to Alexander Payne, asking that his 1996 film Citizen Ruth, a dark comedy satire of the abortion debate, be rereleased or spawn a sequel. The 61-year-old filmmaker recently spoke with The Washington Post about the renewed relevance of the film.

Alexander Payne made his directorial debut with Citizen Ruth, which he co-wrote with his longtime writing partner, Jim Taylor. The film, which was shot in Payne’s home state of Nebraska on an approximate $2 million budget, stars Laura Dern as Ruth, a pregnant, homeless addict who becomes a pawn in the abortion debate. “I can’t believe people even remember the movie, let alone see it as prescient or sadly, still relevant,” Payne told The Washington Post. “I am thrilled as more and more people discover it,” said Dern.

In the film, the titular character is no stranger to jail and state-funded rehabilitation centers. According to Dern, “We thought we were making something that in three years might be passé. And now it is worse for my daughter’s generation.” Three weeks before the Supreme Court confirmed the reversal, the 55-year-old actress had been marching with her 17-year-old daughter, Jaya Harper (whose father is musician Ben Harper), to support Planned Parenthood and abortion rights. Dern admitted feeling “presumptive that no Supreme Court and no justice could ever overturn that decision and do something so archaic and shocking.” That’s why she considered the renewed pertinence of Payne’s ’90s satirical film “absolutely devastating.”

The role of Ruth resonated with Dern just as she was riding a wave of Hollywood superstardom following the success of the dynamic 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton’s novel. “I literally called [Payne] up and said, ‘I am Ruth Stoops; you have to cast me in this movie. I felt so emotionally connected to her and so obsessed with it, and I felt like I just understood the comedy of it, which was so specific,” she told The Washington Post.

One could speculate that the role of a troubled woman addicted to huffing spray paint is an unexpected choice for the actress after portraying paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler in Jurassic Park, which grossed more than $914 million globally during its original theatrical run. At the time, the Stephen Speilberg-directed dino thriller became the highest-grossing movie ever until it was toppled by James Cameron’s Titanic in 1997. However, Dern shared with the Post that she continues to carry a special connection to the afflicted character. “Because of a couple of favorite characters in my career, [Ruth] is definitely up there. I just love her so much,” said Dern.

Citizen Ruth: What’s it All About?

Payne didn’t have an easy time getting the movie made. The fact that the film’s main character is an inhalant-abusing pregnant mother of four who has lost custody of all of her children made it “too dangerous” in the eyes of studio executives, Payne told The Washington Post.

In the dark comedy, Ruth is sent to jail for criminal endangerment of an unborn child, and the judge implies that her charges could be reduced if she has a medical professional “take care of it.” However, while in jail, she’s befriended by anti-abortion activists. They bail her out and offer her a place to stay in exchange for making her the spokesperson for their crusade. Alexander Payne twists the plot by having abortion-rights advocates infiltrate the anti-abortion group in the hopes of winning Ruth over to their side of the debate. Payne recalled that executives mistook it for “an earnest issue movie” instead of the searing satire of the hot-button issue he imagined.

According to The Washington Post, the co-writers were inspired to create the dark comedy by a true-life news story about a North Dakota woman who’d been sent to jail on similar charges. The anti-abortion group Lambs of Christ offered help, and so did abortion-rights advocates from a nearby women’s clinic.

Payne explained that producer Cary Woods “got me an office and a casting director and started getting the script out there.” Woods had been impressed with Payne’s work at UCLA film school. He would play an integral role in getting Citizen Ruth made, since he sold the project to Miramax. Woods also helped Payne attract top acting talent in addition to Dern, including Burt Reynolds, Swoosie Kurtz, Kelly Preston, and Mary Kay Place.

The dark comedy premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1996 and caused a buzz with moviegoers, but it wasn’t nearly as successful when it hit theaters later that year. “The studio kind of dumped it, so it really didn’t do well at the box office,” shared Payne. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the cast enjoyed making Citizen Ruth together. “We are all really proud of it,” said Payne. “We had a really good time making it, you know, young and full of spit and vinegar.”

According to Dern, Alexander Payne has an “unrelenting, unapologetic direction of the character. It takes that kind of courage to ask an actor to never, ever need to find or long for empathy from an audience, but just be that complicated, sometimes awful, selfish, sometimes not smart, mess of a pound-rescue girl.” That gave Dern the freedom she needed to bring Ruth to realistic life in the film. “I think that made [the movie] as honest and also as funny and sad — and all those things — as it is,” said Dern. She rewatched the dark comedy with her daughter and son, Ellery Walker Harper, a few years ago. “It was just an amazing experience to see it again,” she told The Washington Post.

Alexander Payne: ‘It’s a Human Theme Rather Than a Political Theme’

Regarding the abortion debate, Payne’s dark comedy doesn’t pick a side. According to the filmmaker, one of the most common critiques after its release was that “it wasn’t pro-choice enough.” He also lost a liberal friend over the fact that the film comically pits abortion-rights advocates against anti-abortion extremists. Payne said, “I think it is the reason that Citizen Ruth has survived a little bit thematically. It is a satire and is much more about how an individual can be lost amid a larger struggle.”

Alexander Payne has said the titular character “becomes a symbol for each side rather than the recognition of who she is as a person, which is ultimately, of course, a pro-choice kind of argument. It has a human theme rather than a political theme, and I think that is what has given it legs.”

Dern stated, “The film at its core reminds us that people just want to win, to prove they are right without even considering the human being or the circumstance — a life-threatening circumstance to a mother or child. It is just heartbreaking.”