Pullout Pop Culture Quotes: "Antibirth" edition
There aren't enough adjectives to describe Natasha Lyonne in the campy horror movie Antibirth. (But I tried in my review, which you should read.)
As the hard-partying, constantly drinking, chain-smoking Lou, Lyonne is alternately charming, infuriating, sarcastic, sympathetic, and manic. She's almost always fucked up, or on her way to getting there. She's often leaning on people for favors -- like best friend Sadie (Chloë Sevigny) for doughnuts and drugs -- but payback is never implied. Their Midwest town is too small, too snowy, too isolated, and too depressed to make a promise of anything seem legitimate.
Things get weird quickly in Antibirth: The body-horror film begins with what seems like a sexual assault of Lou, and then escalate when she realizes something is wrong with her body -- she's pregnant. Danny Perez's film doubles down on the themes about women's rights and women's bodies with the insistence, over and over again, that Lou's pregnancy is not wanted, is not natural, and is not part of her plan.
"Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a mom. My body literally just rejected life," Lou tells Sadie, and that's the kind of bracing, bleak dialogue that Lyonne can pull off. Antibirth takes a somewhat disappointing turn toward the end as it goes down a well-worn, '50s-monster-inspired path, but Lyonne is always on point, and she tears this script apart with her increasingly angry, impassioned performance.
What are some of Lyonne's best, weirdest, most fucked, and most memorable lines as Lou in Antibirth? Listed below, they'll amuse and disgust you, and that's basically the point. (And catch the movie On Demand if you can; the dialogue is the stuff cult classics are made of.)
+ "My titties fucking hurt, and they're not even that big."
+ "I heard a dog got addicted to heroin because of her."
+ "You think I could find somebody to push me down a staircase or something?"
+ "I love pissing!"
+ "My dad fought for the right to kill his brains. I'm just honoring his legacy."
+ "Let me tell you what I need: candy, money, and whip its."
+ "I don't know what the fuck these guys want. That's why I have one side of my pussy really hairy, and the other side, shaved bare."
+ "I know what an abortion is!"
+ "I don't talk about aliens when I'm getting high. I have a strict policy. Just don't do it!"
+ "I'm not pregnant, Sadie. I'm infected. Whatever is inside of me is infecting my brain, my body. It's not just in my crotch."
