By Marc S. Sanders
“Stretched too thin” is a phrase I’ve always equated to having too much on your plate. (Sorry for using one cliche to explain another.) At the opening of Writer/Director Mary Bronstein’s film, If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You, the voice of Linda’s young daughter describes mom as being stretchy when she is upset. Bronstein’s lens is in close up of Rose Byrne’s weary complexion as she hardly convinces anyone that she is happy, while never getting upset. Over the next two hours, viewers will know the truth and perhaps empathize or grow just as exhausted with Linda.
With her husband (the voice of Christian Slater) away on Navy leave, Linda is left to her own devices to care for her clingy daughter (Delaney Quinn) with a hyperactive personality and an ailment of being underweight for her age. A feeding tube must remain inserted in the girl’s belly until she reaches at least a weight of over fifty pounds. That requires Linda to take her daughter to a special facility for education and careful monitoring. Joint sessions with a health care professional are also required, but Linda does not have enough hours in a day to attend. At night she has to fill the IV feeding bag periodically. Because of her unfairly described “neglect” the girl will not be able attend the facility much longer while Linda balances her overindulgent career as mental health counselor.
On top of all of this responsibility, a leak above her apartment has turned into a deluge and a gaping hole of mildew and mold is infesting their home. Mom and daughter have no choice but to relocate to a crummy beach side motel. It seems they’ll be staying there indefinitely as the repairs are not getting mended with any kind of urgency.
Linda has a troubled patient too; a new mom named Caroline (Danielle Macdonald) with a paranoia of what could happen to her infant child under any kind of circumstance. How can Linda lend professional guidance if she’s losing control of her own well being?
Linda’s only outlet is a psychologist that she leases an office from. The most unexpected of all people plays this uncaring and uptight douchebag. It’s Conan O’Brien and he is so far removed from his comedic and sophomoric personality that it took me a second to recognize him. He’s not psychotic or sociopathic, but he is disturbing. Yet this is the guy that poor Linda has to vent her frustrations towards.
There’s also a parking attendant who’s a consistent, nonnegotiable dick.
Linda just can’t get a break. She has no support system. She can’t find help anywhere and as the days pass so does her lack of emotion and care appear to amplify.
It did not surprise me to learn that If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You is produced by one of studio A24’s Safdie brothers (Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme). What is it with these guys? They love the stressful extremes that can uphold a motion picture. The achievements found in Mary Bronstein’s film are well done in a unique way. Nevertheless, this is no fun time at the movies.
Bronstein’s strategy is to pound the unbearable weight of her entire script on Rose Byrne’s character. Following a prologue, the music blares, and the title appears in giant red block letters on your screen. A few minutes later, in the dumpy hotel room, Linda has a B-horror movie on. Linda’s situation is so much worse than a horror movie.
You never see Christian Slater or Delaney Quinn on screen. You hear Linda’s husband through her cell phone with his unfair treatment and responses to what she shares with him, and you only hear the whiney voice of a preteen’s exaggerated fears of food and brief separation from mom. Everyone that inhabits the world of this film have their own respective aggravations, but it’s Linda’s that matters. As additional triggers unfold, it is Linda we focus on as she drinks and gorges herself on junk food and appears more and more disheveled with her hair, clothes, complexion and body posture.
I’ll never be a mom, but I’ve been a parent for nearly two decades and I could recognize the warning signs that Linda is encountering. Let’s talk about how hard it is to be a parent and a full time working one with a child that needs maintenance all twenty-four hours of a day. Too often all forms of media present an idyllic way of family life, even in those heartbreaking dramas like Ordinary People or Kramer Vs Kramer. Try doing it by yourself when no one is listening to you, while at the same time insisting you are doing it all wrong.
Once the film began, I suspected that we would not see Linda’s daughter or husband. We’d only hear them. Simply put, her family cannot see the agony that we see for poor Linda. It reminded me of Charles Schultz’ Peanuts cartoons. You’d hear the adults, like the teacher or mom and dad, in a drowned out and incomprehensible voice but you’d never see them or understand what they’re saying. You only saw the children and what was regularly ailing them, like Lucy calling Charlie Brown a blockhead when he couldn’t kick the football, or Linus’ dependence on his security blanket. Feels like the reverse happens in If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You. If anyone in Linda’s current state could recognize what she’s enduring, then maybe they’d help. At best there is only a drug user (A$AP Rocky) who offers to lend some kind of hand, but Linda recognizes a threat from his presence and only relies on him for the worst thing for her under these circumstances.
Even with Mary Bronstein’s choice to have Linda hallucinate into the depths of that giant hole in her apartment ceiling, her film is entirely relatable and absolutely unpleasant. However, it is also fiction. Because of that, I wish the script did not turn to the main character having the insatiable need to drink and do drugs. I’m at a point where I ask if that is all there is for people under duress. They can’t have gone far enough unless they’re alcoholic or addicts? I’m not a drinker, but I’ve encountered terrible depths in my life. I insist as a dad, I experienced a kind of postpartum depression following the birth of my child. It was awful. Yet I did not turn towards alcohol and drugs. Junk food and temper tantrums are what weakened me. In movies, drugs and alcohol are too often the go to device for the poison of choice. Can’t we see something else for a change when our protagonists experience dire straits?
Before chemical substances are ever introduced in this film, I felt Linda’s aggravated plight and the weight on top of her. Midway through, the trope of downing a bottle of cheap wine and going back for more crutches the film too often. I’ve seen this kind of story enough already. Not everyone who is suffering the challenges of life are chemically dependent. If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You didn’t need to go here like every other movie in that crowded fraternity of drug use and alcoholism.
A beyond stretched Rose Byrne with a strong promise of winning a much deserving Oscar is more than enough.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 