She loves her daughter. Truly. But sometimes, she just wants to disappear. To run. To breathe for a moment without being needed. you just need some sleep, her therapist suggests, as if it were that easy. Instead, she sits outside her motel room, takes a deep drag from her cigarette, and washes down her exhaustion with another sip of wine.
This is If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Mary Bronstein’s psychological portrait of a mother on the verge of collapse. A film that left many in the theatre literally breathless. this one is anchored by an absolutely stunning performance from Rose Byrne (insidious, neighbors).Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You is a psychological study of motherhood, exhaustion, and the impossible expectations placed on women. we meet Linda, a therapist, wife, and mother barely keeping herself afloat.
From the opening close-up of Linda’s tired, frantic eyes, Bronstein locks us into an unrelenting pressure cooker of anxiety. Linda’s world is falling apart. her husband (Christian Slater) is absent except for his judgmental phone calls, her patients demand more from her than she can give, and her therapist (Conan O’Brien) has seemingly lost patience with her. Most pressing of all is her young daughter, suffering from a mysterious illness, her voice an ever-present reminder of Linda’s crushing responsibility. With their apartment rendered unlivable due to a massive leak, Linda and her daughter are forced into a shappy motel, where she keeps on encountering her stoner neighbor (A$AP Rocky) and an annoyed receptionist (Ivy Wolk).
Bronstein, whose debut Yeast (2008) already displayed a knack for capturing social anxiety, returns with a film that channels the same restless energy but through a more mature and thematically dense lens. Produced by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein (Mary’s husband), If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You is much more sharing a spiritual DNA with Uncut Gems, both films share a nerve-wracking, suffocating atmosphere. But where Uncut Gems externalized its chaos in gambling debts and shootouts, If I Had Legs burrows inward, transforms Linda’s mental and emotional turmoil into the true battlefield.
One of the film’s most striking choices is its refusal to show Linda’s daughter’s face. she is reduced to her near-abstract force of stress and obligation. It’s a move that highlights Linda’s suffocating isolation; she is constantly needed, constantly watched, but never truly seen. As the film progresses, Bronstein amplifies the disorientation, stripping names from characters and leaving Linda (and us) grasping for stability.
What sets If I Had Legs apart from other recent motherhood films, like Nightbitch, is its brutal honesty. While the latter leans into the surreal to make its point, Bronstein keeps her story grounded in grim reality, refusing to offer easy catharsis. One of Linda’s patients (Danielle Macdonald) openly admits that she feels nothing when she looks at her child, just an endless cycle of need and exhaustion. Linda, too, finds no solace in therapy-speak or self-care platitudes. Her rage and frustration are as inescapable as her love for her daughter.
Byrne delivers a career-best performance, navigating Linda’s breakdown with every bit of nuance. Her moments of anger, exhaustion, and fleeting joy are never exaggerated, which makes them all the more devastating. A standout scene between Linda and her therapist peels away every last layer of denial, exposing the raw, painful truth about motherhood that so few dare to say aloud. It’s the kind of moment that could, and should, earn Byrne the recognition she’s long deserved.
Bronstein’s direction, paired with cinematographer Christopher Messina’s gritty, unvarnished visuals, ensures that If I Had Legs never lets us off the hook. Even its moments of humor only serve to underscore the relentless tension. A scene where Linda violently screams into a pillow, only to open her office door and calmly call in her next patient, is hilarious and deeply unsettling. the film masterfully balances these two areas.
With If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You, Bronstein cements herself as a fearless voice. This is a film that refuses to compromise, refuses to sugarcoat, and refuses to let us look away. a nerve-shredding, darkly funny, and brutally honest portrait of a woman on the edge.