If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
An Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe-winning Rose Byrne is triumphant as a troubled mother and therapist in Mary Bronstein’s lop-sided, self-conscious psychological comedy-drama.
Rose Byrne
Image courtesy of Picturehouse Entertainment.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
Mary Bronstein was undoubtedly lucky to have Rose Byrne as her leading actress here, but not even her committed performance can persuade me that Bronstein’s film has a workable concept at its heart. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is clearly a project in which Bronstein was deeply involved since she is the writer as well as being the director and the film is one that looks at life from the viewpoint not of its male characters but of Rose Byrne’s Linda. She lives in New York State, is married to Charles (Christian Slater) who works as a cruise captain and is frequently away from home and has a young daughter (Delaney Quinn) whose health issues are significant. From the start Bronstein opts to emphasise close-up shots of Linda that can be regarded as an invitation to the audience to identify with her as the film becomes an account of the sheer oppression that motherhood can involve and which can feel even more agonising to a woman who has never felt a desire to be a mother in the first place.
Early reviews of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You have been somewhat divided despite virtually everybody rightly recommending the excellence of Rose Byrne in the demanding central role. In many cases those with reservations about the movie stress that its relentless portrayal of a woman under pressure is just too exhausting for the viewer and too intense from the very start. Nevertheless, even if things do indeed build up, it is the case that as the film proceeds the weight on Linda increases to the extent that she could be heading for a mental breakdown. Early on the apartment in which she lives with her daughter gets flooded due to a serious roof leak and they have to move into a hotel. Charles as so often is away, just a voice on the phone and one that seems to lack sympathy. If concerns about her child's health are a constant anxiety with regular visits to a doctor (Dr. Spring played by Bronstein herself), even smaller things aggravate her including the hostile manner of a parking attendant (Mark Stolzenberg) encountered during these visits. She has to cope also with a distinctly unhelpful receptionist at the hotel (Ivy Wolk) although a member of the staff who lives in, James (A$AP Rocky), takes a sympathetic interest in her.
It is no surprise to discover that Linda is regularly seeing a therapist, a role well taken by the American TV host Conan O'Brien. But it is ironical to find that Linda is herself a therapist offering advice to others including in particular a married patient, Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), another worried mother who relies too much on Linda’s support. Before this develops further, one is already aware of the underlying humour inherent in the situation of a therapist who is there to help patients yet unable to help herself when she finds herself in a position equivalent to theirs. Nevertheless, making Linda's troubled life the key focus and encouraging us to identify with her persuades one to treat this first and foremost as a realistic drama, albeit one in which incidental details certainly have their comic side.
However, the development of the tale sees Caroline falling out with Linda. She walks off leaving her baby son behind so that Linda is left with the child on her hands and here the situation is treated in such a way that for a while the tone is that of farcical comedy. Some time later that note is sounded again in a group therapy scene led by Dr Spring which suggests that the film is turning into a send-up of therapists. But, just when one concludes that it would be apt to describe If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You as a black farce, there is a scene shared by Linda and her therapist in which we learn for the first time that some twelve years earlier Linda had undergone an abortion. Talk of that and of its impact on her take us right away from farce of any kind.
While it is possible to create a serious work which also features comic aspects, I feel that black comedy is essentially heartless and therefore not a style that blends with a drama in which sympathy for the central character is surely intended. Bronstein's film never for me overcomes that conflict and it is not helped either by episodes introduced at intervals throughout in which the images become more stylised and even take on an abstract quality. A touch of something close to body horror late in the movie takes this to even greater extremes and adds to my impression of a film that does not really work. Furthermore, the odd notion of largely reducing Linda's daughter to an off-screen voice and only showing her face very briefly also seems like a self-conscious device.
The more significant subsidiary characters are all well played although Linda's husband, Charles, is also mainly an off-screen voice but in his case a voice at the end of the telephone. Only very late on and in a brief scene do we actually see Christian Slater and the film never fully clarifies just how bad a marriage this is. But, despite all the doubts I had about the effectiveness of this film, there was never a moment when Rose Byrne was on screen that did not confirm her total belief in the character she was playing. For me, albeit not for everyone, this film, which has won many awards, was a major disappointment. But Rose Byrne is never part of that and her success at the Golden Globes was certainly a valid one.
Cast: Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater, A$AP Rocky, Mary Bronstein, Ivy Wolk, Ella Beatty, Daniel Zolghadri, Mark Stolzenberg, Manu Narayan, Josh Pais, Helen King and Delaney Quinn.
Dir Mary Bronstein, Pro Sara Murphy, Ryan Zacarias, Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, Eli Bush, Conor Hannon and Richie Doyle, Screenplay Mary Bronstein, Ph Christopher Messina, Pro Des Carmen Navis, Ed Lucian Johnston, Costumes Elizabeth Warn.
A24/Bronxburgh/Central Pictures/Fat City-Picturehouse Entertainment.
113 mins. USA. 2025. US Rel: 10 November 2025. UK Rel: 20 February 2026. Cert. 15.
