‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ review: Cinematic haymaker

Rose Byrne and Conan O’Brien collide in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a powerhouse fever dream flooded with dark, comedic mania.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You kicks you straight in the gut—and maybe the funny bone—while dragging you into the most chaotic family drama this side of a Greek tragedy. Directed with unrelenting intensity by Mary Bronstein (who also appears in the film as a prickly doctor), the film follows Linda (Rose Byrne), an isolated mother and therapist teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown as she navigates a life that keeps throwing flaming curveballs at her. Her daughter’s mysterious illness and constant needs have Linda spiraling, along with a flooded apartment and revolving door of cartoon character patients.

Not even her own therapist (Conan O’Brien, in a role that feels like a beautifully deranged leap from his talk show days) has anything in the way of useful advice for her at this point. While trying to maintain a shred of sanity, Linda finds herself unraveling in a movie that makes Bad Moms look like Room.

Let’s talk about Byrne, who delivers what can only be described as a feral tour de force. Her husband Charles (Christian Slater) is off at work for months on end, so it’s just Linda and her daughter trying to stay afloat. You’ll quickly notice, however, that Charles isn’t the only member of the family we never see. For reasons that become poetically sad as the movie progresses, the camera never reveals the daughter’s face over the course of the film, as if Linda herself can’t bear to look her child in the eyes. Sorry, don’t want to get in Conan’s way, he’s the therapist, not me.

A dizzying spell of cinematic claustrophobia. 

Speaking of Conan O’Brien, where has this guy been all my cinematic life? He only appears in a handful of scenes, so don’t get too excited. And he’s not really playing a broad or straight character here. If anything, he’s the closest character to a surrogate for the director, someone who can clearly see what’s ailing Linda’s mania but doesn’t quite know how to help her process it. This is one of the best things about the movie, really, that it shows the limits of therapy, even for therapists. Never does the film condemn the practice, of course, but rather it allows for some knowing humor at its expense when handled poorly.

Bronstein’s direction is anything but subtle, if that wasn’t obvious yet. The film lurches between absurdity and emotional devastation like it’s switching gears. To the point where you can’t exactly tell what scene is a fever dream and what isn’t. I genuinely contemplated multiple times if we were about to wake up in the beginning of the whole movie to find out nothing actually happened. Because when almost every scene is a powder keg, every interaction is a fuse waiting to be lit and waking you the hell up.

The handheld camerawork traps you in Linda’s unseemly, claustrophobic world, while the sound design amplifies every creak, slam, and raised voice until you’re begging for a smash cut to Linda casually driving her daughter to the doctor’s office. Even these moments of quiet—like Linda sitting in her car, head against the steering wheel, desperately trying to pull herself together—are laced with an unbearable tension, because you never know when a rabid hamster might jump onto the seat. Seriously.

Don’t expect a typical redemption story.

Thematically, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is about the many ways people fail each other—and themselves. Linda’s relationship with her husband is a bitterly funny minefield of unresolved dysfunction in their marriage, all told through various phone calls that always end with Linda hanging up out of sheer frustration. However, Linda’s dynamic with her daughter is definitely more heartbreaking in its honesty than comedic. She loves her fiercely but is so consumed by her own struggles that she often falls short of being the mother she wants to be. The film never once makes you think this is a redemption story, not even close. Instead, it revels in the messiness of real life at its most unreal, where love and resentment coexist in equal measure.

Naturally, a lot of people don’t exactly love watching movies about the unbridled misery of a central character. I get it. Grim chuckles are exactly that. But I couldn’t help but notice that even some of the stoniest faces in my audience found themselves laughing gloriously out loud over Linda’s exasperated reactions to the chaos around her, typically at her expense. Which is why the movie weirdly works where it shouldn’t. We’re laughing as a coping mechanism, just like Linda. Sort of like if Uncut Gems ended with a much-needed therapy session.

The bottom line.

For all its cynical intensity and uncomfortable melancholy, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is still about broken people trying (and often failing) to make it through life without hurting the ones they love. It’s the kind of film that leaves you breathless, a little shaken, and maybe even questioning your own family dynamics. Bronstein has crafted a wild, brilliant, and messy masterpiece of deliriously dysfunction that kicks hard and leaves a mark.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is out now in theaters. Watch the trailer below. 

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Images courtesy of A24.