By George & Josh Bate
Well-executed horror and thriller stories have the power to yield immense anxiety, dread, tension, and stress in their audiences. But seldom does a grounded, reality-based drama elicit these emotions and sensations in the same magnitude as their horror/thriller counterparts. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, the unflinching dramatization of mounting stress from writer/director Mary Bronstein, represents a rare exception to this rule.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You stars Rose Byrne as Linda, a woman burdened with a myriad of stressors to juggle. Linda’s daughter has a mysterious illness that prevents her from sufficiently eating and requires her to engage in intensive treatment, which requires her to be attached to a feeding tube. If that wasn’t enough for Linda to tackle, a massive hole opens up in the ceiling of their family apartment, forcing Linda and her daughter to relocate to a motel, while Linda’s husband (Christian Slater) is away on a months-long work trip. Occupationally, Linda’s stressors don’t let up as her role as a psychotherapist entails that she works with various demanding patients. Collectively, the stressors continue to mount for Linda and culminate in a frenzy of anxiety, self-blame, hopelessness, and desperation.
Based on this description, one would be forgiven in assuming If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a dour watch, but Bronstein’s second feature is anything but. Paced like a breakneck psychological thriller in which not a moment is wasted, the film unfolds like a twisted fever-dream – one that becomes so heart-pounding, you can’t help but laugh. Bronstein never lets the wit of her screenplay undercut the heavy topics and themes she explores; rather, she uses pointed humor sporadically and overarching wit encompassing the entire story to portray a deeply relatable view of life, filled with all of its humors and horrors.
And horrors are aplenty, even if the film is not a horror film (at least not in the traditional sense). Bronstein chooses a disorientation, almost dizzying introduction to our overwhelmed protagonist, with extreme close-ups of Rose Byrne and, conversely, her character’s daughter remaining out of view for almost the entire film. It’s a fitting and gripping beginning that immediately clues the viewer in on how stressed Byrne’s Linda is and previews the type of film that’s about to unravel.
Reflecting Linda’s psychological unraveling over the course of the film are two holes in her life. The first is the very literal, very large hole in the ceiling of her apartment, which Linda struggles to have repaired throughout the film and requires her and her daughter to sleep at a dingy motel. The second hole is the hole in Linda’s daughter’s stomach that a winding plastic feeding tube is attached to at night in order to ensure she consumes enough calories to survive. Over the course of nearly two hours, these holes increasingly show their presence in Linda’s life and imbue If I Had Legs I’d Kick You with an unrelenting sense of dread.
Movies have explored the maelstrom of stressors that people, in particular parents, undergo, but none quite as potently as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. The most obvious point of comparison in recent years is Beau is Afraid, although Ari Aster’s film takes a far more heightened and abstract approach to depicting stress and anxiety. Bronstein intelligently keeps her film grounded, thus making the anxiety hit even harder and feel all the more relatable, even if you aren’t a parent. Through Linda’s struggles, the film explores lofty fears of not being good enough and harming those we love most, in addition to being unafraid to say the most uncomfortable and taboo of thoughts out loud. There are lines in the film that genuinely hurt to hear and yet, due to Byrne’s phenomenal performance and Bronstein’s deft character work, the emotions elicited as empathy rather than disgust. Those who are the caregivers of sick children will likely find the film a particularly difficult watch, albeit one that hopefully gives words to struggles woefully overlooked.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You also captures another underexplored phenomenon in the mental health care of mental health providers. As film critics and mental health providers ourselves (George has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and Josh has his M.S. in clinical counseling), we found the film to be particularly affecting in personifying mental health providers and showing that they too struggle with many of the same concerns that their patients present with. Therapists are often portrayed with an incredible lack of accuracy in film and television, but, for the most part, Bronstein does well to keep things realistic. Byrne’s Linda sees her own therapist (played by Conan O’Brien) just a few doors down from where she sees her own patients, a job that becomes increasingly difficult as her personal struggles mount. Through Linda’s relationships with her daughter, therapist, and patients, the film poses fascinating questions related to its central theme – caregiving – and disturbingly, yet poignantly converges on a message that people largely do not do a good job of caring for others. In Linda’s case, this is ultimately because she can’t take care of herself.
None of these questions and themes would play as effectively as they do if the film wasn’t anchored by a commanding lead performance. Thankfully, Rose Byrne delivers just that. The Australian actress known for her roles in Damages and Insidious delivers a stunning, career-best performance that will put the Academy to shame if it is not given much-deserved awards attention. Byrne, who features in every moment of the film, wears a frenzied blend of fear, fatigue, self-blame, and disorientation in every line, facial expression, and body movement with profound emotional intelligence and accuracy. Even as Linda makes ‘bad’ decisions, Byrne ensures that audience empathy never slips as she crafts such a multi-faceted and deeply real character. There are strong supporting performances from O’Brian, Danielle Macdonald, and A$AP Rocky, but If I Had Legs I Had Kick You is firmly a vehicle for Byrne’s extraordinary talent, more than any role of hers to date.
Bronstein fittingly concludes her film, although it never quite transcends a striking portrayal of anxiety and stress to become something more moving and nuanced. The film is far from simplistic in the topics it explores and its portrayal of the most uncomfortable of emotions and thoughts, but there is a slight lack of heart and warmth that becomes apparent as the credits roll.
VERDICT: 8/10
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You lives up to its title in kicking the feet from right under you with the palpable frenzy of anxiety, dread, tension, and stress it evokes. Anchored by a stunning and career-best performance from Rose Byrne, the second feature from writer/director Mary Bronstein propels forward with the breakneck pace of a heart-pounding psychological thriller as it deftly explores parental stress, caregiving, and self-blame. Bronstein gives voice to issues rarely explored in depth in cinema, in particular the nuances of caring for a sick child and the mental health care of mental health care providers. So stressful that you can’t help but laugh throughout, the film avoids being a painfully dour watch though through a screenplay full of wit, interspersed with some genuinely funny moments. The film will not be for everyone, especially those looking for a fun and breezy time at the movies. But, as an example of the spectrum of deeply relatable emotions and thoughts that film can elicit, movies rarely hit as hard and leave as lasting of an impression as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.