A spiraling mental journey into motherly affliction
Can a film be simultaneously very good and also excruciatingly stressful to watch? Yes, I think so! Unpleasant viewing experiences can either be earned or unearned (read: purposeful or not on purpose). Mary Bronstein’s new film, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, falls into the former category. A fraught tale delivered with sensory bombast and utilizing a powerhouse performance by Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a siren song to motherhood.
Rose Byrne plays Linda, a therapist with an absent husband away on a multi-month work trip and a daughter who suffers from an illness that requires a feeding tube. One evening a pipe bursts in their home, creating a large dangerous hole in the bedroom ceiling, causing Linda and her daughter to temporarily move into a nearby motel. In addition to issues at home and her life literally crashing down around her, Linda’s patients add trouble and annoying pressure to her already chaotic daily routine. The immense nagging from Linda’s family, unhelpfulness from professionals, including her therapist/office colleague, played by Conan O’Brien in an impressively restrained and vexing performance, and debilitating guilt causes her mental health to spiral out of control.
Byrne’s performance deserves an Oscar nomination, if not a win. The camera holds close to her face for extended periods of time, and she communicates the boiling stress and fury as we hear the grating voices and noises confronting her from off-screen. Bronstein also refrains from showing us Linda’s daughter’s face, leaving us with only a voice and partial framing of her body and physical ailments. This choice is purposefully frustrating, since we cannot account for the daughter’s emotional countenance. We only see Linda’s reactions to her daughter’s never-ending pleading, questions, and complaints.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You shares a single-mindedness in its theme to last year’s Nightbitch. However, where Nightbitch failed to take us beyond the surface-level animal metaphor into the character’s real-world consequences and implications, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You does so through surreal visualizations, shifting tonalities, and a clear desire to make the viewer uncomfortable. Also unlike Nightbitch, supporting characters in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You serve an emotional purpose, like O’Brien’s therapist, A$AP Rocky (Highest 2 Lowest) as a mysterious motel neighbor, Bronstein as an infuriatingly vague-speaking doctor, and Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$; The Tourist) as a mentally unstable young mother and one of Linda’s patients. Each character needles a different section of Linda’s life, and her inability to balance care for herself, others, and her child takes its toll and feeds the vicious cycle of guilt.
Despite the stressful-bordering-on-tormenting viewing experience, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You works because it’s so effectively written, directed, and acted. Everything on screen is meticulously crafted and deliberate. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is in conversation with Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, a similarly surreal dark commentary on motherhood, minus the overtly biblical and theological explorations. Bronstein’s film will leave you speechless, exhausted, and relieved to be exiting the theater. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth the watch. On the contrary, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You will move you and elicit intense feelings, and that’s a notable feat.
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If I Had Legs I’d Kick You opens in theaters on Friday, October 17th.
