If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

7/10

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You had to be one of the most bizarre titles of 2025.  It suggests having the desire to lash out, but lacking the ability or permission to do so.  The movie played in fewer than 300 theaters back in October.  For comparison, Black Phone 2 expanded to 3,460 theaters during the same time period.  Thank goodness it’s now streaming on HBO Max, where more people can finally see why Rose Byrne rightfully earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Linda is a therapist, a wife, and more importantly, a mother.  Her life begins to collapse from all directions.  She has a demanding caseload of needy patients, a marriage mainly conducted over the phone, a massive hole in the ceiling of her apartment, and the daily exhaustion of caring for a young daughter with medical needs.  A series of events pushes this woman to the brink.  Life’s problems can be separately manageable. This is a portrait of how, when they all arrive at once, they become unbearable.

It’s all about Linda.  She’s in every scene, and the account never shows us anything outside her perspective.  Cinematographer Christopher Messina stays tight on her face, often in close-up, amplifying Linda’s anxiety.  The audience is likewise trapped inside her spiraling mental state.  We’re forced to see it happen.

Because of that, the supporting characters exist to orbit around the protagonist.  Conan O’Brien appears as Linda’s therapist.  He’s a cranky presence, far from a source of guidance.  Danielle Macdonald plays Caroline, one of Linda’s patients, whose own crisis mirrors Linda’s unraveling.  A$AP Rocky is James, a motel superintendent on the fringes of this woman’s unstable world.  Linda’s husband, Charles (Christian Slater), is largely absent, reduced to a voice on the phone.  What is truly strange is that Linda’s daughter, portrayed by Delaney Quinn, is rarely visible.  She is usually framed out of the shot, a presence more than a character.  The saga is completely filtered through Linda’s subjective experience.

Linda is not particularly likable.  She is at odds with society’s expectation that motherhood should be saintly patience and grace.  Linda loves her daughter, but she also treats the requirements of her care as a burden.  While getting pizza, the little girl whines that she doesn’t want cheese.  When Linda accidentally drops the pizza, the cheese peels off onto the top of the box.  The mother jokes that her daughter must be a witch, since that’s exactly what she wanted.  It’s a funny comment, and her child giggles.  It’s also a little mean, which fits the narrative’s tone perfectly.

The way disasters pile up around Linda becomes almost absurd, tilting into acrid humor.  Writer-director Mary Bronstein clearly draws from lived experience, and that specificity gives the developments an authenticity.  I understood where Linda was coming from.  I felt sorry for her even when I didn’t condone her behavior.

What keeps the film at arm’s length is its refusal to offer any resolution.  The story ends the way life often does, without catharsis or closure.  While I can respect that choice intellectually, it leaves the picture feeling more like an unfinished idea.  Everything here is well written, precisely directed, and impeccably acted.  Yet the experience is joyless.  I admired the craft on display, even while I was drained by it.  This is 113 minutes of expertly assembled misery.

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