Review - If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Directed by: Mary Bronstein
Written by: Mary Bronstein
Starring: Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater, ASAP Rocky
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Anyone who has seen Damages or Bridesmaids has known for a while just what Rose Byrne is capable of delivering. But If I Had Legs I’d Kick You confirms it: she is undeniable and in this film, she’s at her career best. Visceral, raw, and hilarious, it’s the kind of performance that makes it clear just how rare true versatility is.
Byrne’s Linda is a woman stretched past the breaking point and Byrne plays every shade of her struggle with such intensity that it’s impossible to look away. The psychological dram-com comes from writer-director Mary Bronstein, who somehow makes her second feature feel like easy work, like it was the product of a much more experienced film-maker. It’s an exhilarating exploration of the emotional terrain of modern-day motherhood, and of the razor-thin line between holding it together and falling completely apart.
Linda’s days are defined by impossible contradictions. At home (or at the hotel), she is the caring, if somewhat impatient mother of a daughter with a serious medical condition that drains every ounce of her energy and hope. At work, she’s a therapist expected to absorb the problems of her patients, offering clarity and resolve while clinging desperately to her own. Her lifeline, ironically, is her own therapist (Conan O’Brien) who acts as a frustratingly silent and somewhat indifferent witness to just how fragile her carefully built scaffolding has become.
What Byrne achieves in this role is remarkable. She imbues Linda with guilt, resentment, exhaustion, and the tiny, flickering joys that keep her moving forward. There’s no glamour here. But Byrne being Byrne, she manages to sprinkle in the sharp comedic details she’s long been known for, making Linda’s despair much more human.
It’s the tension of opposites that makes Byrne’s performance soar. A parent’s endless love pitted against her endless frustration . The dilemma is laid bare. And that’s what makes this film unforgettable.
The unavoidable comparisons to Uncut Gems are not just easy shorthand but actually earned. Bronstein builds her film around a relentless escalation of stress. Scenes pile up like waves ready to crash in the climax, each one threatening to knock Linda off balance, each one ratcheting the anxiety higher..
Bronstein’s direction is tight and kinetic. Editing choices keep us in Linda’s headspace, rarely letting us breathe. It’s cinema as pressure cooker, the kind of filmthat some viewers may find too stressful to sit through. A harrowing and exhilarating reward for those to manage to complete it.
As remarkable as Byrne is,much of the joy comes from its supporting cast. Conan O’Brien, in particular, is as expected, a bunch of fun.. O’Brien plays Linda’s colleague and therapist whose mixture of dry wit and bizarre sincerity provides unexpected levity is hilariously inspired.d every one of his scenes lands with both humor and pathos.
ASAP Rocky and Ivy Wolk round out the cast. Their characters do feel somewhat underdeveloped. The charisma is there, and Bronstein clearly has ideas for their presence means thematically, but it’s one of the few elements of the film that begs for more exploration.
But this is a small quibble in a film that otherwise feels remarkably assured.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is not an easy film. It is emotionally bruising, relentless in its tension, and unwilling to offer neat catharsis. But that’s precisely what makes it so powerful. It treats motherhood as a battlefield of impossible demands. And in doing so, it gives Rose Byrne the role of a lifetime, one that will likely be remembered as a high-water mark of her career.
