Only a few seconds into this harrowing black comedy by Mary Bronstein, the protagonist, a fortyish Long Island mother named Linda (Rose Byrne), says to her complaining young daughter, “I’m allowed to be sad,” a massive understatement that will prove to be the foundational joke of the film. Over the next 110 minutes, Linda’s patience and sanity will be tested by a slew of misfortunes that will test the patience and sanity of the viewer as well. For the most part, Linda’s anxieties are justifiable. Her daughter, whose face we never see but whose voice and demeanor are those of a petulant brat, is suffering from some sort of ailment that has rendered her unable to eat and thus necessitates a feeding tube that requires constant care, and Linda’s rented apartment has just suffered broken plumbing that has forced her and her daughter into a cheap motel room while her cruise ship captain husband (Christian Slater, essentially a whining voice on the phone) is away at work for a few months, leaving her to her own devices and demons, some of which come in human form, though in the end Linda’s worst enemy proves to be herself.

Bronstein exacerbates the tension and fear by keeping the camera tight on Linda’s face, a landscape darkened by constantly changing emotional heavy weather. Though some have characterized If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (a phrase I didn’t hear used during the movie) as another study of post-partum depression, Linda’s daughter is not an infant—I would guess her age to be around 7 or 8—and Linda’s psychological condition, while certainly in dangerous territory, seems initially a product of the outside forces rallied against her. For sure, she is beset by assholes at every turn, whether it’s her daughter’s doctor (Bronstein), who scolds her for not taking the support group for mothers with ill children seriously; her own psychiatric patients, whose insufferable neediness would be hilarious if taken out of context; her mentor-colleague (Conan O’Brien), who receives her litany of complaints during requisite therapy sessions with unconcealed contempt; or the various service workers—receptionists, clerks, parking lot attendants—who refuse to see her as a woman under the influence because she makes their job that much more difficult. The only character at all seemingly cognizant of what Linda is going through is James (A$AP Rocky), the custodian at the motel who helps her acquire alcohol from the front desk and drugs on the dark web, tasks that at first smack of a kind of perverted charity but, of course, end up being disastrous choices, and not just for Linda, because everything Linda touches turns to shit, including, it would seem, her daughter.

The incontrovertible conclusion is that Linda is not fit to be a mother, an observance that Linda herself makes multiple times to herself and others, and any viewer with a modicum of pity will agree, though I’m not sure if Bronstein wants us to maintain that conviction through to the vaguely suggestive final scene. For sure, Byrne gives us a howling performance of female instability that rivals anything Gena Rowlands manifested back in the day, but since everything is channeled through Linda’s claustrophobic POV it’s difficult to tell how much of her suffering is imagined. I would guess very little, because the world is famously full of assholes. Some people are equipped to confont that world regardless of what it throws at them, and Linda ain’t one of ’em. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2025 Legs Film Rights LLC