If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

Released 2025. Director: Mary Bronstein

THINK YOU'RE STRESSED? COME SPEND A COUPLE OF HOURS with Linda, who just might have a meltdown any second now. Watching If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is watching a woman edging ever closer to a nervous breakdown and it's not the Pedro Almodovar comedy kind of crazy. What director Mary Bronstein so insistently positions inches away from our noses is a close-up dramatic demonstration of a woman fraying at the edges. I'm pretty sure this does not quite qualify as entertainment as people take movies generally to be, but it's certainly a visceral showing of what a beleaguered woman is going through.

Linda is the sole carer for her young daughter, who suffers from an eating disorder that involves a feeding tube inserted into her stomach. Like most kids, the girl is often demanding of attention whether the mother is busy doing something or even driving. Linda's husband is stationed far away for work and until the very end of the movie, only ever exists as a voice on the phone bemoaning his wife and offers absolutely no help at all. Linda works as a therapist and listening to other people's problems only seems to compound her own.

As if there wasn't enough on her plate, one day the floor in her apartment is flooded and moments later the ceiling comes crashing down. Linda and daughter are put up at a cheap motel where the caretakers openly deal drugs. One of her patients suffering from depression decides to walk out of her session and goes missing for days. Linda's own shrink loathes her and offers no assistance even on a professional level.

You think that's a lot? There's also a persistent parking attendant who takes his job very seriously, the child's doctor who thinks Linda is not doing enough and threatens to escalate the treatment, and a pet hamster that leaps out of the car window and becomes a pancake on the road. Cue terrified shrieks from the child.

Kudos to Rose Byrne for taking us through Linda's daily turbulence like a ride on a runaway train about to derail. Byrne never falters in an anxiety-driven performance. While she is believable and memorable, this is a performance of technique. It is engrossing rather than riveting, tortuous on the surface but doesn't deepen the character.

What lets down Byrne's mastery of her craft is the structure of the narrative because it is no more than a series of situations designed to accentuate the same point. As it touches on societal issues related to motherhood and healthcare and attempts to generate empathy and compassion for Linda, the movie staunchly avoids asking the tough questions and delving deeper than surface melodrama. This woman juggles motherhood and career without any support. How did a person like Linda find herself in this situation? Why are the people around her so unsympathetic? Why does her husband not understand what she's going through? Why isn't she able to get some help?

Linda's own therapist, as played by talk-show host Conan O'Brien, despises her as a colleague and a patient. While the movie works so hard to make us feel for Linda's plight, it's also using the hostility of O'Brien's character to judge her and the choices she makes.

We know the child is real but keeping her faceless and only existing as an endlessly nagging voice, petulant and complaining, makes her a pest, or even imaginary. I'm not sure that by keeping the child nameless and unseen until the very final scene helps in a positive way.

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is a busy movie emphasising the same thing over and over, convincing while lacking understanding. To be fair the movie swung its legs but didn't do any kicking.

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