Movie Review: ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’

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Initial Thoughts

Rose Byrne in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’. Photo: A24.

‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ is not one of those movies that you can say you ‘enjoyed’ or that it ‘entertained’ you. Sort of a cross between the Safdie brothers, David Cronenberg, a bit of Jennifer Kent, and a seasoning of Marielle Heller, ‘If I Had Legs’ is a punishing two hours that will leave you drained and not sure of what you saw – but absolutely stunned by the titanic performance at its center from Rose Byrne.

Byrne is nothing less that fantastic as Linda, a mother and therapist whose life is collapsing around her, and for whom nothing offers any respite, not even her own therapist. Darkly funny, sometimes terrifying, and always stress-inducing, ‘If I Had Legs’ doesn’t always navigate its tonal shifts and can be unrelenting. It puts Byrne through the ringer and she never flinches once, giving a harrowing, raw, and all too human look at a woman and mother on the edge of an emotional abyss.

Story and Direction

(L to R) ASAP Rocky and Rose Byrne in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’. Photo: A24.

Linda (Rose Byrne) is on the edge of an abyss when we meet her. Her daughter – who remains unseen throughout the movie, only glimpsed peripherally while her whiny, panicked, high-pitched voice grates on both Linda and the viewer – has a rare disorder that prevents her from taking in food normally. She has a feeding tube that goes directly into her stomach, attached to a bag which Linda must refill constantly. Linda’s husband is endlessly away for work – he’s only present through phone calls in which he berates his wife for not getting her act together.

When the ceiling of her bedroom collapses, flooding their apartment, Linda and her daughter are forced to move into a seedy motel where she is also berated by the attitude-challenged front desk clerk (Ivy Wolk) and suspicious of the motives of her neighbor, James (A$AP Rocky). Linda, a therapist, is also dealing with a patient (Danielle Macdonald) who seemingly abandons her toddler in Linda’s office, while the missing patient’s husband makes increasingly belligerent phone calls. And Linda’s own therapist (Conan O’Brien) is hostile toward her, as is her daughter’s doctor, who hints that social services may need to step in if her daughter remains underweight.

This is the gauntlet that Linda must run throughout the course of writer/director Mary Bronstein’s film, which is taken wholly from Linda’s point of view and puts the viewer through the same ringer as her. And it’s brutal, almost to a fault: there’s barely a moment of respite for Linda even as events begin to take on a surreal quality – like the massive hole in her ceiling, which goes unfixed, starting to look like a fleshy, organic wound leading to a strange nether region that pulls Linda toward it.

Rose Byrne in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’. Photo: A24.

Bronstein doesn’t always find the right balance of humor and horror in her film, which at times plays more like the latter despite the dark streak of satire throughout. The message of the movie is front and center, and even that is presented with almost no shading – for example, just about every single man in the film, seen and unseen, with the possible exception of A$AP Rocky’s James, ranges from condescending to outright vicious in his approach to Linda (the women are not much better, to be fair). And Linda comes to some self-realizations late in the film that make some stark truths about parenthood hit home.

But even though it can feel like an onslaught with no light at the end of the tunnel, ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ does have its moments of grace, and it does deliver a visceral, painful portrait of what happens when life just seems too overwhelming, a scenario that’s increasingly common every day.

Cast and Performances

(L to R) Conan O’Brien and Rose Byrne in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’. Photo: A24.

‘If I Had Legs’ is the third film we’ve seen recently that’s built around a momentous performance, following ‘Anemone’ (Daniel Day-Lewis) and ‘The Smashing Machine’ (Dwayne Johnson). And while this film has its issues like those two, Rose Byrne’s work here is nothing less than extraordinary. The entire film is from her point of view, and Byrne and Bronstein burrow into Linda’s psyche with incredible depth and precision, so that you feel every single moment along with her.

Also noteworthy is Conan O’Brien, dispensing with his affable public persona to make himself almost unrecognizable, at least temperament-wise. His unnamed therapist is condescending, seething, and reptilian, and makes the most impact with his limited screentime. The rest of the cast is also quite strong, especially A$AP Rocky and Danielle Macdonald, but their roles are smaller in a film that’s largely dominated by one character.

Final Thoughts

Rose Byrne arrives for the 84th Annual Academy Awards® from Hollywood, CA February 26, 2012. Credit/Provider: Matt Petit / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.

Like the two films we mentioned above that are anchored by powerful individual performances, ‘If I Had Legs’ is getting released right in the thick of awards season – and Rose Byrne absolutely deserves to be in that conversation, if not leading it. Known largely as a comedic actor, she channels something far darker here. And so does the movie: ‘If I Had Legs’ plays like a horror film for large stretches of its running time, although how much unspools solely in Linda’s head remains ambiguous.

While the acting, design (particularly the sound), and imagery are compelling and expertly realized, ‘If I Had Legs’ may be too relentlessly one-note to be a great movie. But the richness of most of the material, and Byrne’s interpretation of it, still comes through enough to make this a worthwhile experience, if a feverish and unforgiving one.

‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ receives a score of 80 out of 100.

What is the plot of ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’?

With her life crashing down around her, Linda (Rose Byrne) attempts to navigate her child’s mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.

Who is in the cast of ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’?

• Rose Byrne as Linda
• Conan O’Brien as Linda’s therapist
• Danielle Macdonald as Caroline
• A$AP Rocky as James
• Ivy Wolk as Diana
• Daniel Zolghadri as Stephen
• Delaney Quinn as Linda’s daughter
• Christian Slater as Charles

Rose Byrne arrives at the 84th Annual Academy Awards® from Hollywood, CA February 26, 2012. Credit/Provider: Heather Ikei / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.

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