If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Review: Motherhood at Maximum Volume

Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You doesn’t ease you into its nightmare—it drops you directly into leading character Linda’s spiraling psyche and refuses to let go for 113 unrelenting minutes. Rose Byrne’s performance as a therapist drowning in maternal anxiety represents some of the rawest work you’ll see this year, the kind that makes you squirm not from horror but from recognition. You’ll be both captivated and wrecked.

The film emerged from Bronstein’s own experience when her daughter’s illness forced them into a San Diego motel for months. Crushed into a bathroom after 8pm bedtimes, drinking cheap wine and binge-eating fast food, Bronstein felt herself disappearing. That authentic dread permeates every frame. Linda isn’t a bad mother—she’s a normal one pushed past sustainable limits. Bronstein refuses to sand down that ugly reality. This is a film about the things we try to bury: the outburst you regret, the excuse you make to avoid shame, the moment of weakness that spirals into something unfixable. 

Byrne (Like a Boss) commits fully to Linda’s unraveling, playing someone who can neither professionally nor personally maintain mental health anymore. When Linda’s apartment ceiling literally collapses (in a spectacular practical effect shot only twice), it externalizes her internal state: everything is falling apart, and the hole keeps expanding. Forced into a dead-end motel while her husband (Christian Slater) is away, Linda makes increasingly poor decisions that range from grimly hilarious to genuinely disturbing. There’s a moment late in the film where Linda yells, “Help me. Help. Me.” It’s not a monologue—it’s a plea so naked and painful you almost want to look away.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You makes its most audacious choice in never showing the daughter’s face until the final scene. We hear young Delaney Quinn’s (The Roses) voice and see the ever-present feeding tube, but Linda’s perspective has narrowed. She can’t see her child, only the burden she’s become. It’s a gamble that doesn’t totally pay off, making the film’s closing moments perfunctory instead of revelatory. Throughout, the daughter’s ADR voice feels too clean, too bright, creating dissonance with the film’s gritty realism.

Conan O’Brien, in his feature film debut, plays Linda’s therapist with surprising restraint. His character represents an indignity: Linda’s own mental health professional wants out, exhausted by her problems. O’Brien navigates this uncomfortable territory well. His arc, from support system to checked-out observer, makes for one of the film’s most painful subplots. He doesn’t just fail Linda—he abandons her. His casting was risky but inspired, though his physical blocking in one scene—literally preventing Linda from entering his office during crisis—stretches credibility from an acting and character standpoint.

A$AP Rocky (Zoolander 2) brings unexpected warmth as James, the motel superintendent who becomes Linda’s unlikely confidant. His natural charisma and easy chemistry with Byrne provide the film’s only moments of genuine human connection. Danielle Macdonald (I Am Woman) appears as Caroline, Linda’s patient who becomes her dark mirror in the film’s most disturbing scenes.

Christopher Messina‘s cinematography traps us in Linda’s claustrophobia through relentlessly tight framing and invasive close-ups. The oppressive sound design by Ruy García and Filipe Messeder transforms everyday objects—feeding tubes, baby monitors, ceiling voids—into instruments of dread. Bronstein’s DIY approach creates disturbing but oddly perfect practical effects: an endless feeding tube, a rat-like hamster puppet capturing Linda’s warped perception of her situation. These choices give the film tactile unpleasantness CGI couldn’t match. It wears its cinematic influences proudly while carving a distinctly feminine perspective on parental body horror.

Despite its technical achievements, not everything works. Some narrative threads—particularly James’s storyline—end abruptly, and there are questions If I Had Legs I’d Kick You never seems interested in answering. Why is Linda the only mother in her hospital support group who’s angry or vocal? Why does her therapist act unethically without the film acknowledging it more overtly? You can tell Bronstein wants to provoke, but there are moments where the provocation threatens to topple the whole thing.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You joins recent maternal horror like Nightbitch and Tully, but Bronstein’s film feels angrier, messier, less interested in redemption. This won’t work for everyone. It’s exhausting by design, the kind of film I’m not sure I could endure again—similar to how I felt after Uncut Gems. But for those willing to sit with Linda’s collapse—literal and metaphorical—Bronstein offers something rare: a film that doesn’t apologize for depicting maternal burnout in all its ugly, terrifying reality. Some films only whisper their truths. This one screams in your face.