Dir. Alexander Payne
USA
The following review will be slightly shorter than the others as I will admit that, having anticipated watching this film for a few years, I was disappointed with it, but I will write what I thought about it still. The film follows Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern), a poor drug addict who faces either aborting the foetus she is pregnant with or facing jail for harm against it. This event leads to her being caught up between a political battle between two different groups – pro-life advocators who want her to keep ‘baby Tanya’ as it is called and a pro-choice group who want her to abort it – wanting to use her to push their message against the other.
The character of Ruth is the film’s strongest aspect. Despite her dubious actions – sniffing solvents despite the harm it might do to her and the unborn child, punching kids etc. – she is an innocent, one who has nothing of her own and no one, not even her family, who cares for her. The only reason she may have started on solvents from what you see is out of boredom; the only thing she truly cares about is a cassette on learning how to own your own property she finds at one point, enwrapped by it and given something to strive for. The shots from her own eyes, such as her foot in the bathtub from different angles depending on which eye she has closed, are the most striking shots of the film, especially for one which is visually lacking and could have been much better, and also give some depth to the film. These shots emphasise the naive worldview of the character, someone who is caught between two feuding groups with a political motive. Strangely this premise has a similarity to the well known A Fistful of Dollars/Yojimbo plotline, and with that in mind Laura Dern is the perfect protagonist, showing that she is an underrated actress through this performance.
Sadly the rest of the film, both tackling the abortion issue and how individuals are caught up between combating political groups, does not go deep enough into its premise to reveal anything profound, even if it was something minor the viewer already thought about. It feels as if, with the exception of Ruth’s portrayal, Alexander Payne did not go far enough with his portrayals of both the pro-life and pro-choice groups in the film as he could have done. Brief moments – such as the pro-life leader’s (Kurtwood Smith) tendency to place leaflets for his group around the DIY store he works at much to his boss’ disdain – suggest a film where we could see the issues from both sides’ perspectives as well at criticising them for their actions. The film is also not as funny as it should have been, with most of its humour coming from the shallow stereotypes, which are not given enough of a personality each to be as interesting as Ruth, or bad hair on the male characters. I will admit that a bad toupee could make me laugh, especially on Burt Reynolds’ head, but it cannot sustain an entire film.
In the end, it is an average film but one which misses a significant opportunity to tackle these issues with depth. It feels that, despite the director’s attempts to make the film more realistic, he is still making the film ‘safe’ as a commercial product without realising it. Within the last year or so, my viewing of cinema, especially around the globe, which tackles these issues in much more thoughtful or controversial ways, has compromised a lot of traditional narrative drama for me, especially from the United States. I might have enjoyed this film even more when I was younger but as it stands it really is not that intelligent or risk taking as it should be outside the fact that it has Laura Dern snorting patio sealant at some point. It is worth seeing for Dern but aside for that it is something I would never rewatch again unless a very long passage of time has taken place between viewings.
Note – Thank you to the Lost Picture Show podcast, who covered this film in a very early episode, for bringing up to Yojimbo comparison. You the reader can find a link to their site on the left sidebar of this page.
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