If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

 

“I just want you to help me!”

Unrelenting, anxious and exhausting, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a propulsive and penitent descent into motherhood and madness with a captivating and relentless Rose Byrne at its centre in a film bristling with discomfort and stress that overwhelms and distresses  with seldom resolution. 

Discussion Points:

Every now and again a movie comes that is both incredible and also something I never wanted to sit through again. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is an unrelenting panic attack of anxiety and motherly desperation that astounded me. It’s a truly engrossing experience of a film that envelops you in its anxious exhausting reality. Mary Bronstein writes and directs a deeply forceful film that crashes wave after wave of calamity and tragedy into the increasingly fractured world of Rose Byrne’s long suffering Linda, a therapist and mother who’s professional and personal worlds are falling apart, literally. As conflict after conflict applies extenuating pressure upon her, we the audience are subject to her suffering in an unforgiving dissection of the very real stresses some find themselves under. Rose Byrne delivers a powerful career best performance that left me absolutely impressed. Bronstein’s direction additionally heightens the unsettling and disorienting atmosphere to an almost suffocating level of anxious intensity. A truly exhausting experience, that I’m very glad exists, but never want to endure again.