Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Mary Bronstein
Starring: Rose Byrne, ASAP Rocky, Conan O'Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, writer/director Mary Bronstein's first feature since her 2008 debut Yeast, is centred on the rather over-played trope of the therapist whose own life is a bigger mess than those of their patients. But Bronstein approaches this notion in an unexpected manner, her film's chaotic energy closer to the work of the Safdie brothers than something like The Son's Room, the gold standard of this particular plotline.
Best known for supporting turns in comedies and headlining streaming shows that nobody watches, Rose Byrne gets a chance to shine in the lead role of Linda, a therapist whose own life is a bigger mess than those of her clients. With her husband Charles (Christian Slater) away on an extended work trip, Linda is left to care for their young daughter (Delaney Quinn), who suffers from an eating disorder that requires her to be fed through a tube. When the ceiling in their home collapses and the house is flooded, Linda and her kid (who remains unnamed and unseen throughout) relocate to a nearby motel.
Byrne recently played a similarly harangued woman in the currently unreleased Tow. I took issue with that film's refusal to acknowledge just how awful Byrne's character was, because that movie seemed to be resolutely on her side. Bronstein's film conversely wants us to sympathise with Linda, and we do, but it's also aware that she may be correct in her insistence to others that she wasn't meant to be a mother. Each night, Linda leaves her daughter alone in the motel room while she drinks wine and gets stoned in the parking lot. There are tense moments as we watch her replace the kid's tube with her unsteady hands. She stubbornly refuses help from James (ASAP Rocky), a friendly young stoner who lives in the next room, but she insists on probing a fellow colleague (Conan O'Brien) for answers when he's clearly uncomfortable with the idea of taking on a co-worker as a patient. Some of Linda's behaviour might see her labelled a "Karen", and her relationship with the medical professionals caring for her daughter veers uncomfortably close to anti-vax territory.
Unlike Tow, which asks us to cheer along with the awful character Byrne portrays there, Linda's lowest points here are designed to make us feel mortified on her behalf. She may not be a great mother, but Charles certainly isn't going to win any father of the year awards, and though we only hear his voice for much of his performance, Slater plays one of the villains of the year. Keeping her husband offscreen accentuates the idea that Linda is alone, though she has built a wall around herself to dissuade anyone who might wish to help her. The choice to keep her daughter unseen eventually pays off, but it's a storytelling decision that causes a lot of unnecessary distraction (were it not for an early moment where someone else speaks with Linda's daughter, you might begin to wonder if Bronstein is setting up a Shyamalan-esque twist). I'm not sure the film's psychedelic diversions fit the tone of the drama, with Linda frequently hallucinating lights dancing around the hole in the ceiling, a visual parallel to the hole in her child's stomach.
Bronstein adds a lot of stylistic flourishes, and whether they enhance or distract from the drama is up for debate. The strength of Byrne's central turn renders any such garnish unnecessary, as everything that needs to be communicated here plays out on the Australian star's face. That face is often seen in close-ups, and Byrne plays the part like a woman aware she's being filmed at her lowest point by a camera circling like a vulture, one she doesn't have the strength to swat away. Special mention must also go to Rocky, whose likeable turn as Linda's well-meaning neighbour might be the most convincing performance by a rapper since Tupac in Gridlock'd.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is in UK/ROI cinemas from February 20th.
