Citizen Ruth (1996)
Directed by Alexander Payne
"Citizen Ruth" is the story of Ruth Stoops, a woman who nobody even noticed -- until she got pregnant. Now, everyone wants a piece of her. The film is a comedy about one woman caught in the ultimate tug-of-war: a clash of wild, noisy, ridiculous people that rapidly dissolves into a media circus.
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What critics compared Citizen Ruth to
After review, The Hunt harks to the Alexander Payne film, Citizen Ruth.
It can’t touch the Clinton-era satires The Last Supper (1995) or Citizen Ruth (1996), which succeeded for reasons other than being on “the correct side.”
I kept wondering what Alexander Payne ("Citizen Ruth," "Election") would've done with all this.
In addition, the movie features a terrific performance by DuVall and a refreshing, Citizen Ruth-like fairness in its satirical aim (the Christian Right gets theirs, but so do those folks who buy everything Rainbow -- cups, curtains, kitchen accessories -- to decorate their homes).
Rolfe Kent (ah, the Alexander Payne connection!—for his scores on Sideways, About Schmidt, Election, and Citizen Ruth) does a masterfully complimentary score, with additional songs picked by music supervisor Randall Poster including Crosby, Stills & Nash and Charles Atlas.
Even “Knocked Up,” for all its flaws, didn’t skirt the issue so completely, and “Citizen Ruth” showed that a filmmaker of courage and vision could wring amusement from it, even if the laughter had a bitter edge.
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"Juno" features the outrageous family dynamics of "Little Miss Sunshine" without the humanity of its deeply flawed members or "Citizen Ruth" with skin deep politics replacing that film's sharp edge.
From high school elections ("Election"), the abortion debate ("Citizen Ruth"), or even wine tasting ("Sideways"), Payne has a way of finding humor and heart in everything he directs.
(Political satire, too, often brings out the director's best and sharpest knives; see 1996's entirely ruthless Citizen Ruth and 1999's now-canonized Election.)Even as it cracks salty jokes about penis cancer and the Peloponnesian War, The Holdovers is often shameless in its emotional endgame and its spelled-out exposition.
Alexander Payne has never failed to hit one out of the park since his feature debut with the Laura Dern-starrer, “Citizen Ruth,” the satirical story of a most unlikely icon in the battle between pro-life and pro-choice forces.
Alexander Payne, the director of Citizen Ruth, Election, and About Schmidt, has returned with his best film to date, Sideways, a brilliant revival of that most disreputable of genres, the buddy movie.
Sideways, directed by the incisive Alexander Payne (Election, Citizen Ruth), follows Miles and his old college buddy Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a has-been soap actor, on a week's vacation through the well-lit banality of California.
October 21, 2004 - Since first gaining attention with 1996's Citizen Ruth, which cleverly satirized both sides of the abortion issue, Alexander Payne has had a pretty good run.
Now that Alexander Payne has made four films ("Citizen Ruth," "Election," "About Schmidt" and the new "Sideways") that have all been excellent, we can officially declare him one of the best directors currently working.
Director Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor, the team that gave us "Election," "Citizen Ruth" and "About Schmidt," have not only made the funniest, most assured film of their partnership (see Film Notes on Page 39), they've harvested one of the most pleasurable movies of the year.