MOVIE REVIEW: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You ~ FILMYWAPAS

IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU— 3 STARS

Part of digesting the rough road paved by Mary Bronstein’s potent drama, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, featured at the recent 61st Chicago International Film Festival, is reflecting on the nature of motherhood. It is a monumental undertaking that is not for everyone. In her novel At Home on Ladybug Farm, author Donna Ball put it comprehensively this way:

“Motherhood is a choice you make every day, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is… and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.”

We meet Linda, the central protagonist of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You played by the dynamic Rose Byrne, with a slowly creeping close-up that stops on her puffy, tired eyes filling the entire widescreen frame. In this introductory moment, she’s verbally combating the notion of her flexibility as a parent against a poorly used “putty” analogy. Underneath those eyes, there’s both dedication and indignation in her voice because her self-sacrificing situation is rather unique.

Linda’s heard-but-not-seen and unnamed daughter (Delaney Quinn) requires constant medical care due to severe food aversions, making meals and maintaining any sort of physical health a difficult ordeal. Most of the daughter’s nutrition is delivered at night by a machine pumping pureed slurries through an abdominal feeding tube. Her Navy husband, Charles (an off-screen Christian Slater), is out of town on business for several weeks, putting Linda alone with the clingy girl and her host of irrational fears and impossible needs that pour out of her thoughts and mouth and nearly every waking moment of the day.

LESSON #1: IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE IT HARD, MEET THIS WOMAN— At the suggestion of Mary Bronstein herself at her pre-screening talkback at CIFF, picture your worst day of irksome inconveniences, and then add more personal hell. Your imagination might get close to Rose Byrne’s Linda in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Just wait. There’s more.

A ruptured pipe above their Montauk apartment has caused flooding and a massive hole in the ceiling. Costly repairs and delayed laborers have put Linda, her daughter, and their roadshow of medical equipment up in a shoddy motel for an undetermined amount of time. On top of all that, Linda still tries to maintain her day job of being a present and effective psychotherapist at the same office with her own beleaguered personal therapist (a brilliant Conan O’Brien, shedding his comedic skin).

The volume of external pressures placed on Linda is laborious and echoes the plight of providing for someone else’s well-being, as described in Donna Ball’s quote. The work on her home is going nowhere and infuriating her husband, which lands back on her. The precarious fragility of Linda’s patients—particularly a new mother named Caroline, played by Dumplin’ discovery Danielle Macdonald—is getting worse, with her own exhaustion diluting her focus. Her daughter’s doctor orders increased weight gain to be free of the feeding tube and insists Linda join a parent counseling group to improve her attitude, an extra step she adamantly refuses to do. Likewise, her own sessions with O’Brien are becoming petulant and more barbed with every meeting.

LESSON #2: MOMMY NEEDS A MINUTE— Linda is clearly at her wits’ end. As they say, “Mommy needs a minute.” When she tries to get away in the evenings after a long day to decompress from the maddening red lights and beeping alarms of the feeding machine, Linda scrounges for a joint and a bottle of cheap lobby wine—two more poor choices—and retreats to a bench outside the motel by herself for a moment’s joy. Even then, she can’t get that minute. Either the baby monitor tucked under her overcoat breaks the silence with an alert, a call from her comfortable husband comes through, or the curious motel superintendent, James (A$AP Rocky from Highest 2 Lowest, in an excellent complementary part), won’t leave her alone.

At this crushing tipping point of time, as things are going from bad to worse incrementally, Mary Bronstein bends If I Had Legs I’d Kick You even further, thanks to the THC coursing through Linda’s veins and strangling her insomnia. At several times in the film, Linda finds herself staring into a deep, starry void (designed by director of photography Christopher Messina) that drowns her senses and ours. The enveloping blackness and ominous sound design accompaniment singe our synapses for comprehension and make us question—in true A24 fashion—the reality and surrealness of everything being shown.

LESSON #3: HOW MUCH CAN A PERSON TAKE BEFORE HARM SETS IN?—That undoubtedly bold thematic inclusion either pulls you into If I Had Legs I’d Kick You or jettisons you too far into your own thoughts that clash or multiply with Linda’s errant choices. Once it gets to the point where Linda feels she wasn’t supposed to be a mom, you begin to dread the worst. This low calls to mind yet another quote about motherhood, this time from The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage writer W. Somerset Maugham:

“A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.”

In If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, we are witnessing that slow and ugly descent towards potential lasting damage when self-care is out the window or, in this case, tossed to and fro by the ocean’s waves. Watching Linda claw fruitlessly to gain every type of perceived control over the uncontrollable and lash out in denial of the blame and shame is a hard thing to watch.

What strengthens this viewing experience is the unyielding performance from Rose Byrne. Her expressive interpretation of both physical and mental fatigue is beyond anything she’s ever done and is one of the best acting displays of 2025. Her fully-formed comedic timing as a seasoned actress of that genre stirs the dark and uncomfortable humor that bubbles within If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. There are frequent points where things are so bad, you can’t help but laugh in the face of desperation. Bryne has a vibrance beyond the stress, where levity can be found to break the futility. She and Bronstein try to conquer demons one frankly honest choice and completed task at a time, even if, like Bell says, they’re all still wrong and require forgiveness. If nothing else, please give Rose Byrne that minute you need to give Mommy. Come and appreciate what she accomplishes.