IF I HAD LEGS, I'D KICK YOU

US, 2025, 113 minutes, Colour.

Rose Byrne, Delaney Quinn, Mary Bronstein, Conan O'Brien, Christian Slater, A$AP Rocky, Danielle Macdonald, Ivy Wolk, Mark Stolzenberg, Daniel Zolghadri.

Directed by Mary Bronstein.

This disturbing and challenging drama was released at the same time as Die My Love with Jennifer Lawrence. Die My Love dramatised a mother descending into deep depression after the birth of her baby, a film which the female audience could identify with, a film that made demands on the male audience for appreciation and understanding.

This is true of If I Had Legs – only much more so. It is quite emotionally demanding of its audience, often a hard watch but a film which dramatises so much of the pain that a woman, a mother and wife, sometimes has to suffer. And, once again, there would be enormous empathy for a female audience watching this film. And, once again, a challenge to a male audience for appreciation and understanding, to elicit some empathy.

Rose Byrne has had a long career in Australian and international films for over 30 years. Critics are referring to her performance here as Linda, mother of a young daughter needing medical care, her husband away with contact only by phone, herself a therapist but also undergoing her own therapy and not coping at all well, at times not coping at all, as the performance of a lifetime.

For so much of the drama the words frantic and desperate best describe what is happening for Linda, required to give constant attention and presence to her child, seeing her clients for therapy (and another disturbing subplot with a young mother not coping at all and disappearing) and Linda having sessions with her own therapist (played by television’s, Conan O’Brien), proving to be an antagonistic and uncooperative client.

Then, sudden disaster in the apartment, her daughter (not seen throughout the film until the end, but always a presence, always a voice) finding her room filling with water and the discovery of the roof caving in flooding the apartment, the camera returning to the gaping hole in the roof throughout the film. Added pressures, her husband away, the landlord uncooperative, delays in repairs, mother and daughter having to stay in a hotel, sad memories of an early abortion.

Linda’s behaviour becomes more and more erratic, sometimes keeping composure in working with her clients, but even that beginning to disintegrate. She is also required to join a women’s group to help to cope with their daughter’s illness, but Linda is defiant, rude, bluntly outspoken towards the leader as well as some of the distraught mothers in the group. (The leader of this group is played by the writer-director, Mary Bronstein, her screenplay drawing on some of her own experiences.)

While there are some sympathetic characters, especially a neighbour played by rap singer A$ap Rocky, who becomes entangled in Linda’s moods, we see Linda becoming the victim of so many others’ moodiness, her therapist, her clients, the pedantic woman at the store… little miseries to add to the overall misery of Linda’s experience, her love for her daughter, the continued demands and weariness of constant care.

A review of this film should offer an alert that is not just a movie to go to for some entertainment. Rather, it is significant in offering its audience a harrowing experience, some empathy for a suffering woman who is not always sympathetic.                 

1. The title, tone? Expectations? The work of the writer-director, her experiences?
2. An American story and setting, universal characters, themes and issues?
3. The American city, homes and apartments, hospitals, conference rooms, therapists’ rooms, shops, and the final open space and the beach and the sea? The musical score?
4. Audience response to Linda? Rose Byrne’s performance? Age, marriage, her husband in service, away, her daughter, her age (not seen, heard, seen at the end), her illness, the constant care and presence? How sympathetic a person, mother?
5. Linda, the effect of the demands of her daughter’s illness, taking her to school, the demands of the parking attendant and his aggression and her aggressive response, asking others to take her daughter into school? The conversations with the doctor, her presence expected at the discussion sessions with the mothers, her putting off the appointments? Discussions about her daughter’s illness, the treatment, the possibilities of terminating the treatment?
6. The water in the apartment, her daughter’s reaction, the flood in the apartment, the crashing down of the roof? Further exasperation? Mother and daughter having to live in a hotel, the neighbours, Linda going to the store, wanting the alcohol, the assistant and his strictness, Jamie and his sympathetic response, trying to talk to her, her walking away, her surly attitudes towards him, his later help, going to the house, falling through the hole in the roof, injuring himself? Linda and her attitudes?
7. Linda and her therapist, her tantrums and silence, his reactions, the relationship, sympathy, hostility, losing patience, her memories and telling of an early abortion? Then discovering Linda as a therapist, with Caroline, the baby, depression, the absent husband, ringing during the night, coming to the apartment, dependence, disappointment, her disappearance, Linda and the police, the questioning, Caroline’s husband on the phone and his attitude? Caroline reappearing, Linda’s handling of the situation, failing, Caroline running away towards the sea?
8. Linda, her clients, Stephen, dreams and emotions, the young woman waiting?
9. The building, the phone calls, the landlord, reasons for delay, no repairs? Staying in the hotel, Jamie and his mother?
10. The building up of exasperation, the phone calls to her husband, his response, her cutting him off?
11. Linda going to the meeting, surly towards the leader, harsh towards the mother with her story, trying to be blunt and honest? Saying there was no hope, walking out? Going to her daughter, the information about the tube, removing it, the hole healing up?
12. Chris, eventually arriving, his uniform, the repairs in the apartment, his exasperation, her response?
13. Linda, running away, to the beach, into the successive waves, washed up on the beach?
14. Seeing her daughter, her husband’s return, her depression, what future?