Citizen Ruth: Looking Back at Alexander Payne's Prescient Abortion Satire

What’s the Film: Citizen Ruth (1996), available on DVD and Hulu

Why it's an Inessential Essential: The premise — one woman’s attempt to have an abortion turns into a national debate and bidding war — was a bold choice out of the gate for writer-director Alexander Payne. Citizen Ruth is his first feature film, and like his subsequent work, it has a biting wit, absurdities from every corner, and deeply flawed characters.
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