SUNDANCE: ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ Is A Visceral Look At Motherhood

Writer-director Mary Bronstein pushes the audience to stare at a mother losing hold of her life in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Opening first with Linda (Rose Byrne) talking to her daughter’s (Delaney Quinn) therapist, Dr. Spring (Bronstein) in a group session, we hear her deny that there is anything wrong. Dealing with an eating disorder (assumed based on the topic and, well, my own background), the staunch rebuttal of the proposed treatment is recognizable to anyone who has been in that situation with a parent in denial. However, the added layer is that Linda knows deeply what’s wrong since she’s a therapist.

With her life crashing down around her, Linda attempts to navigate her child’s illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist (Conan O’Brien). What we get is a woman on the brink, and every small thing about life begins to feel like a compounding heavy stone she has to carry.

Her reasons for being frustrated keep adding up. Dr. Spring sets a goal that Linda believes is unrealistic. A security guard keeps yelling at her to move her car whenever she goes to the hospital. There is a hole in her ceiling that the contractors just won’t fix which has forced her into a rundown motel. The motel front desk person (Ivy Wolk) hates her. There’s a young guy (A$AP Rocky) at the motel who keeps hitting on her (kinda?). And, of course, there is the fact that she’s parenting alone while her husband calls her just to complain.

Linda is on her own. She’s stuck and frustrated, and as the pressures cause her to oscillate between being a caring mother, a calm professional, and a person ruled by rage, regulating her emotions becomes an exercise she commits to until failure. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is unnerving as it hurtles towards its finale, with a third act that pushes your buttons in just about every way it can. Even with that, filmmaker Mary Bronstein has been able to write a script that is uncomfortably funny, where dark humor perfectly accentuates horrid situations.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a character study of motherhood spiraling down a drain. At this point in cinema and in feminism, we’re well past viewing motherhood as something beautiful, glowing, and never allowed to struggle. Instead, we’re seeing more stories about how motherhood can eat away at your soul, especially when you believe that you have hurt your child beyond forgiveness.

This film falls into the current era of motherhood in cinema but is shown through a meaner lens. One that keeps the child’s face out of view, with only her voice or hand entering the frame. We never see Linda’s daughter (who doesn’t have a name), not until the end of the film. We see parts of her that Linda can’t keep from acknowledging. It sets the tone for the film. Her absence and how often Linda tries to escape her daughter is excruciating at times. And as it happens more and more, the audience is left with a dread that ramps up its pace before the film’s end.

Mary Bronstein does the most to make the audience question what is reality and what is hallucination. As Linda loses more and more sleep and starts to stop presenting a perfect image to the world around her, it’s like watching a slow-moving car wreck with no way to save anyone involved.

Rose Byrne delivers an all-time performance in A24’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

I do not know how to rate If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Not because I think it’s some grim, dark story that makes people uncomfortable. But because Rose Byrne’s performance so specifically feels like I’m watching my mother tell my therapist at 13 that she would not be continuing to bring me because she didn’t need to be questioned. Byrne’s performance is so accurate that it’s terrifying. When grouped with her performance in AppleTV+’s Physical, it highlights the depth and damage that Byrne can channel as an actress. Every word cuts.

No one can match Byrne’s dedication to falling apart on screen. She wears her guilt on her face, applying confidence like a foundation that washes off easily as things get harder. The responsibilities begin to catch off that finely applied professionalism and confident smile leaving only a broken woman with no recourse for help. It’s a brutal performance. When coupled with Byrne’s other work, I can’t help but wonder how she recovers from all of it when the director says “cut.”

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You made me want to crawl under my seat, it made me want to walk out, it made me want to simply stop existing. I have never felt like a spotlight was pointed so brightly in my direction before. While the narrative lacks cohesion, its uncommitted ending forces the viewer to decide what Linda has done, making the film feel like it holds back its last punch after pummeling you for two hours. It’s a negative, and yet I can see how it’s Mary Bronstein’s small act of kindness to her protagonist.

So what do we do when a performance is so accurate that it makes our skin crawl and our ears hurt? What do we do with a film whose ability to inflict trauma is so potent that it makes you hate it? More specifically, what do you do when that film stills its balled fist at the last moment? The truth is that I don’t know what to do with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. I do know that I would never recommend it, but I also know that Rose Bryne continues to solidify herself as a true talent in dark comedy, tragedy, and visceral relationships.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and will be distributed by A24.