Still from “How to Be a New Yorker With Chloë Sevigny”
Long an indie-film dream girl, Chloë Sevigny returned to Sundance last week for the screening of her new film, Antibirth, which opened in Park City on January 25. The movie stars Sevigny and Orange Is the New Black star Natasha Lyonne as best friends in a dismal Michigan town where there’s nothing better to do than get high. After she suffers a blackout in the film, Lyonne’s character discovers she is pregnant (and that’s when the spooky, supernatural stuff begins). Directed by Danny Perez — and part of Sundance’s “Midnight” movie series — the film is a fresh, feminist take on the horror genre and it deals with pregnancy, body image, and drugs. Sevigny spoke to New York Magazine about making the film and the idea of motherhood after 40.
When asked if the film was a commentary on abortion or pregnancy, Sevigny says that the film deals with the role of women in our society today, when things like “the meth epidemic” are causing the fabric of small-town America to crumble. She also points out that, “Our characters are not teenagers kicking around a town. We’re depicting women our age who live in this hopeless loop.”
The power of women having control over their own bodies is a key aspect of the film, and was something that the actors helped mold. Sevigny says, “There was a lot of sensitivity around [pregnancy and reproductive rights] when we were working on the script with Danny.”
The actor, 41, also explained that she’s not just thinking about the pro-choice side of the reproductive spectrum these days, saying, “I have a lot of friends that are aging and trying to have kids. We’ve been through the miscarriages and the abortions; we all know women who have been in all sorts of different circumstances. So we have the jokey moments about it, but then there’s also the sensitive moments.”
The range of ways to have a child — or not have one — is also something that Sevigny is contemplating, saying, “Talking to girlfriends who I knew wanted to have children, they all thought it was just going to happen. When it doesn’t happen, you’re faced with [fertility] drugs, whether your eggs are healthy, and [implanting] embryos. It just becomes so scientific and forced. That all makes you rethink, what does being a mother really mean to me? There’s almost too many options, which are great, but it also becomes confusing.”
Credits
Text Laura Vogel
Image Still from “How to Be a New Yorker With Chloë Sevigny”