If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – Film Review

Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a film that defies easy categorization — a psychological comedy-drama that mixes the absurd with the tragic, and the mundane with the surreal. It’s a story of collapse: of a home, of a mind, and of the quiet systems that hold both together. Through an unflinching script and masterful performances, the film explores the indignities of emotional exhaustion with surprising humor and raw intimacy. The result is one of the most striking and darkly funny character studies of the year — a delicate balancing act that rarely falters.

Rose Byrne gives one of her finest performances as Linda, a therapist whose emotional resources have long been depleted. Her life is a carefully maintained façade that begins to unravel when her home literally caves in. The collapsed ceiling of her Montauk apartment is both a visual and psychological fracture — the image of a structure that cannot bear its weight. With her daughter sick, her husband absent, and her professional obligations overwhelming her, Linda moves through the film like someone trapped underwater, gasping for brief moments of air.

Bronstein’s direction captures this suffocating mental state with striking precision. She shoots much of the film in narrow, claustrophobic frames, keeping Byrne partially obscured by walls, doorways, or furniture. It’s a visual language that mirrors Linda’s emotional compression — she’s always boxed in, always tethered to something that threatens to snap. The motel she’s forced to move into becomes a purgatorial setting, its peeling wallpaper and flickering lights an external manifestation of her unraveling mind.

The film’s tone is constantly in flux, often lurching between biting comedy and quiet despair. One scene might involve Linda fumbling through a telehealth session while her daughter screams offscreen; another might show her weeping silently in a motel bathroom while the sound of a sitcom filters through the wall. These tonal whiplashes are deliberate — Bronstein invites discomfort, forcing the audience to feel the emotional seesaw of Linda’s life.

The supporting cast is just as vital to the film’s impact. Christian Slater, in a brief but memorable role as Charles, plays a husband whose condescension borders on cruelty. He is the kind of partner who calls not out of concern but out of control — his words drip with passive-aggressive venom. Slater’s cold detachment makes him the perfect antagonist without ever turning him into a caricature.

Danielle Macdonald’s Caroline, a new mother on the verge of abandoning her responsibilities, functions as a distorted mirror for Linda. Their sessions blur the boundaries between therapist and patient — both women seeking someone to validate their fragility. Macdonald brings an earthy vulnerability to the role, grounding the film whenever it threatens to drift into absurdity. Her scenes with Byrne are among the most charged and unpredictable, full of awkward silences and emotional leakage.

Then there’s Conan O’Brien, delivering perhaps the film’s most surprising performance. Cast as Linda’s therapist and professional superior, O’Brien weaponizes his trademark deadpan into something biting and quietly cruel. His scenes carry a bureaucratic sterility — he offers stock phrases about “boundaries” and “self-care” while Linda is visibly disintegrating in front of him. O’Brien’s performance underscores one of Bronstein’s recurring themes: the hollowness of institutional empathy.

A$AP Rocky’s James, the motel’s superintendent and Linda’s unlikely confidant, injects the story with warmth and unpredictability. His character blurs the line between rescuer and enabler, offering Linda both drugs and fleeting moments of connection. Their chemistry is uneasy but compelling — he is simultaneously her distraction and her mirror, another person trapped in emotional limbo. Rocky plays him with a disarming mix of charm and melancholy, giving the film an unexpected emotional anchor.

Despite its heavy subject matter, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is often hysterically funny. Bronstein’s script is laced with biting wit and absurd scenarios that feel pulled from the fringes of reality. The humor doesn’t come from punchlines, but from the absurdity of endurance — the strange comedy of trying to maintain composure while everything crumbles.

One of the film’s most recurring motifs is the way Linda’s work bleeds into her personal life. Her clients’ neuroses begin to sound eerily similar to her own thoughts, and her once-professional demeanor becomes a cracked performance. Bronstein finds dark comedy in these moments of professional dissonance, showing how mental health care — for both patients and providers — often exists as an illusion of control.

The film’s title, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, is both bizarre and devastating once its metaphorical weight becomes clear. It captures the kind of powerless rage that simmers beneath Linda’s polite exterior — a desire to lash out at a world that refuses to accommodate her pain. The line, which surfaces late in the film, lands like a release valve, encapsulating the film’s fusion of fury and humor.

Mary Bronstein proves herself a fearless filmmaker here. Her direction is unshowy but deeply expressive, allowing emotional truths to emerge through framing and rhythm rather than exposition. The decision to never show Linda’s daughter’s face is especially bold. It strips away sentimentality and turns the child into a haunting presence — not a character, but a symbol of Linda’s crushing responsibilities.

Bronstein’s screenplay, too, deserves praise for its restraint. She never explains Linda’s breakdown through easy psychological shorthand. Instead, she builds a mosaic of exhaustion — little indignities, missed calls, bills piling up, appointments gone wrong. The film’s pacing is deliberate, sometimes punishingly so, but it rewards patience with moments of astonishing emotional clarity.

If there’s a weakness to If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, it’s that Bronstein occasionally leans too heavily into ambiguity. Certain narrative threads — particularly Linda’s relationship with James — feel abruptly truncated. The film’s refusal to offer catharsis is admirable but occasionally alienating; its elliptical structure may frustrate viewers expecting a conventional resolution.

Still, these flaws feel minor compared to what the film achieves. It’s a rare work that captures the absurdity of despair without romanticizing it, that allows its protagonist to be cruel, self-destructive, and deeply human. Byrne’s performance anchors everything — she moves from brittle restraint to volcanic release with unnerving authenticity. Watching her unravel is painful, funny, and oddly liberating.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a brutally honest exploration of burnout and the contradictions of care. It’s about the people who give everything to others until there’s nothing left for themselves, and the absurd humor that emerges when sanity starts to splinter. Mary Bronstein has crafted a film that feels both small and immense — intimate in scale but universal in its emotional resonance.

Anchored by a career-best performance from Rose Byrne and supported by a sharp ensemble, it’s a messy, mesmerizing portrait of survival through chaos. Like the hole in Linda’s ceiling, the film never quite closes — it just keeps widening, revealing the fragile scaffolding beneath the surface of everyday life.