A great debut for Alexander Payne!

Citizen Ruth tell the story of Ruth Stoops, a woman that always made bad choices in her life. She is very irresponsible, she is a drug addict and she is pregnant again. After being arrested one more time and when the judge finds out that she is pregnant he suggests to her that with all of her previous legal problems the better thing she has to do is "take care of her problem" if not she has to face much serious legal charges.
The local pro-life group called The Babysavers finds out about this case and want to save Ruth trying to change up her mind about killing her unborn child. The thing is there's a pro-choice group also with one of their members infiltrated in the pro-life group, they try to pass Ruth for their side telling her that she can chose and if she doesn't want to have her child no one can forcing her to that decision. And that's when all of the troubles begin!

Ruth is very immature and despite the serious theme this film is turns out to be hilarious due to the characters and the way some of the arguments are introduced. It's a clever satire about the controversy of abortion.

The acting is very good from all of the cast particularly Laura Dern, who plays Ruth Stoops, with a very convincing performance.

This is the kind of a film that has an open-ending where you are free to think what you want, and take your own conclusions of the story. What choice should Ruth make? Is Ruth really a bad person or she just needs help?