The Reel Review
A heavily over-burdened mother and therapist finds her mental health failing, between dealing with a chronically sick daughter, an absent, unsympathetic husband, and difficult patients at her therapy practice – all while being forced to live in a motel after their house floods. Rose Byrne stars in this psychological drama.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is one epically stressful, exhausting fever dream of a film. Byrne gives an Oscar worthy performance as Linda, the woman spiraling out of control, in a story reminiscent of other dramas about heavily put-upon mothers like Nightbitch, mother! and The Lost Daughter, just more effectively done than most of them. Conan O’Brien co-stars as her own not-so-helpful therapist – a rare serious turn for the popular comedian, with Danielle Macdonald (Dumplin’, Patti Cake$) as Linda’s most difficult patient, a new mother struggling with post-partum depression, and rapper A$AP Rocky as Linda’s temporary neighbor at the motel, the film’s lone sympathetic voice.
Based on her own personal experience several years ago, writer/director Mary Bronstein deftly captures the disorienting tsunami of helplessness and the gloomy, distorted perception that mothers feel when life spirals beyond their control. The fact that she leaves us with an unsatisfying, intentionally vague ending is frustrating. But it won’t matter – this is one depressing, anxiety-inducing ride that you almost certainly won’t want to see ever again.
REEL FACTS
• Writer/director Mary Bronstein also appears in the film as the manipulative Dr. Spring. Her filmmaker husband Ronald provides the voice for the husband of Danielle Macdonald’s character.
• The hamster scene was inspired by a real-life incident involving director Mary Bronstein’s daughter Faye.
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was filmed over just 27 days in New York City and Montauk, on Long Island.
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