Once again I'm kinda baffled by how much more personality this has than Payne's later works. It's one thing to mature as a filmmaker, but with Payne I've always felt like he became increasingly safe after he started to receive serious critical acclaim. There's a lot I find quite impressive about this for a debut feature. Laura Dern's performance is excellent (very different from any of her work with Lynch and Spielberg) and the comedy is great. The sound and editing do a great job at making the absurd situations Ruth finds herself in more entertaining. She's a hard character to root for, but the script and Dern do a great job at making us feel empathy as a viewer. Now, because this movie is satirizing America's relation to abortion rights, it still feels relevant to this day. Full disclosure: I come from a place where it's pretty agreed upon that America's relation to abortion has always been quite ridiculous and behind the curve. Payne seems to have similar thoughts, but his point of view feels basic and doesn't quite dig deep enough to a place I'd find really compelling. It introduces a potentially interesting plot twist half way through, but in the end it constantly keeps cycling back to the same point over and over again. It kinda makes a similar mistake I often find in the works of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, where it places equal blame on all parties for making mistakes. With _Citizen Ruth_, while it's indeed true that everybody's trying to influence a decision that should be up to the individual, it doesn't quite seem to recognize that some parties have more authentic arguments than others. Still, I was quite enjoying the wild, unpredictable ride it takes us on. It constantly keeps upping the ante and escalates to a ridiculous climax that works perfectly with the tone of the film. Just know that if you're looking for something with more depth and nuance about this topic, maybe watch something like _4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days_ instead.

6/10