The a-ha moment in Mary Bronstein’s relentless psychodrama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” came when the hysterical, shrill-voiced, face-less Charles (Christian Slater) surprises his family at their hotel wearing a sea captain’s uniform. Earlier in the film, he’d shouted at his wife Linda (Rose Byrne), belittling her career (“You listen to people whine”) and almost shoving her over the phone, asking: do you want to drive this ship? Figuring that had to be a metaphor for the self-involved, control-freak Charles—who’s always away for work—the revelation that he actually rides ships for a living snapped the film out of its harrowing artifice, collapsing the countless grief markers and symbols of suffering despair into what looks like, in retrospect, a work of devoted literalism. And although Linda’s agonizing private life resembles a farcical, neverending nightmare, Bronstein’s dark, strange world is too real.
The facts of Linda’s life—her daughter’s demanding medical needs, absentee husband, a no-good therapist—are presented at close range, with Bronstein and Cinematographer Christopher Messina practically bullying Linda into the frames. The jangly, busy visual strategy serves Bronstein’s script, which favors aggressive showing over the relative whisper of exposition. Editor Lucian Johnston’s (“Hereditary”) precise cutting adds more volatility to an comically-charged grim fairy tale. Never alone, Linda is constantly sprinting towards, then trying to sneak away: her daughter (Delaney Quinn)—whose face, like Charles’, is not shown until the end—has an undefined condition that requires tube-feeding and constant monitoring over her weight and “progress.” Percentages and grades are bandied about, and Bronstein herself plays Dr. Spring, a stern taskmaster and overstepping caregiver (Linda: “Dr. Spring shouldn’t be saying she loves you.”) who’s more Nurse Ratched than Patch Adams, at least from Linda’s view.
Byrne Soars in ‘If I Had Legs’
Amid the demands of solo parenting a sick child, Linda must make her own time to work. She’s a therapist whose office has the type of name—Montauk Psychological Arts—that dares you to laugh, or look closer to examine the dark, fitful bits of humor Bronstein finds in her panicked galaxy. The film opens in a doctor’s office, where Linda receives a light scolding and thinly-veiled threats related to her parenting and her daughter’s care. Back at home, Linda seized precious seconds of solace, scarfing down a slice of pizza—bread first, then in one triumphant chew and swallow, the cheese that had fallen off. When she goes to check on her daughter, Linda sees there’s a leak. Moving into her room, the ceiling bursts open, and the actual floodgates have opened.
Similar to “A Different Man”—another A24 crackup—the hole in the wall is freighted with meaning. And while both films build up to and deliver jolts of gruesome violence and manic-depressive mood swings, Bronstein’s resting perspective is unapologetically tender. Given ample ammo from Bronstein’s humane screenplay, Byrne soars as a self-critical, selfless matriarch who resists sympathy and despises cloying platitudes. Linda knows that she needs to put on her oxygen mask first. But before that, she needs to care for her daughter. Linda has to try to deal with the needs of her patients. And manage her husband’s juvenile outbursts. And, when she’s not doing all that or going to check on the apartment, she’ll think about herself, allowing for a cigarette, some wine or, in a perfect world, some cocaine bought off the dark web.
A Modern-Day Human Interest Fable
Byrne skillfully—and often, hilariously—blends fake-it-till-you-make it optimism with a middle-finger-to-the-world pathos that should earn plenty of praise, and awards-season superlatives. But don’t sleep on Bronstein, whose daring script and steadily unsteady direction fuel the film’s palpitating heartbeat. Certain unwelcome side bars drag the film’s ceaseless forward momentum, and the associated supporting characters often play into—or submit to—familiar tropes, beneath Bronstein’s imaginative potential. A$ap Rocky plays a needling hotel employee who has a drug hook up, Conan O’Brien is Linda’s dull, eyes-on-the-clock/our-time-is-up therapist. An exception: the hospital parking lot attendee (Mark Stolzenberg) who’s constantly chasing and (in Linda’s words) harassing her. Here, it’s not the tube-fed child or the raging, missing husband that sets Linda over the edge: it’s a power-tripping parking lot crusader, blind to the needs or inner demons of a parent who drops a kid off at the hospital every day.
Gritty, resourceful yet staggeringly pragmatic (“No, it is all our fault!”) Byrne’s feral fighter mom would offer a dutiful companion to Amy Adams’ Mother in the underrated “Nightbitch” (2024). Grounded in realism, “If I Had Legs” is a modern-day human interest fable which doesn’t hide the loyalty owed to its flawed protagonist. And since Linda’s support system evaporates around her in real time, even she might grit her teeth and accept Bronstein’s unambiguous offer of an oxygen mask or, at least a pillow to scream into . For all the judgment levied at Linda from the outside, Bronstein cuts her slack, to which Linda might welcome and then flit away, waiting for someone to give her what she really needs: a healthy daughter, genial husband, reliable contractors or most urgently, cocaine.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” an A24 release, made its New York premiere at the New York Film Festival. Follow here for an updated screening schedule.
