The belligerent beep of an unattended fridge door can set nerves on edge quicker than an irksome family member at Christmas. This delirium-inducing tone is a constant clarion call for Rose Byrne’s harried mum and professional therapist, Linda, in Mary Bronstein’s anxiety-inducingly frenetic and fantastic feature about the impossible trials of motherhood.
An all-pervading beep emits from the drip that’s hooked up to the tummy of Linda’s heard but largely unseen daughter (voiced by Delaney Quinn), who wheedles from offscreen. Linda’s always on, with the neverending need to replace the drip’s bags of nutrient goop a source of near-panic. To add to the general air of paranoia, her daughter’s social worker battles her over the mysterious treatment, arguing that it’s all unnecessary.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You showcases the daily bullshit that mothers have to put up with from loved ones and strangers alike. Bronstein crafts a thriller of teeth-grinding magnificence centred on Byrne as the indefatigable figure at the centre of this whirlwind of unsolicited advice.
To compound things, Linda must fight many maddening battles while trying to keep her shit together after a gaping hole erupts, like a biblical flood, through her bedroom ceiling – a catastrophe that has her and her daughter relocating to a seedy motel. Trying to score alcohol after hours, she hits up the receptionist (an excellent A$AP Rocky), who fixes her up with cocaine and yet more mothering advice.
Rose Byrne delivers a tour de force of matriarchal fury
All the while, her military husband (look out for a top-notch mystery cameo) hectors her on the phone. He joins school parking attendants and Linda’s therapy clients – including Daniella ‘Patti Cake$’ Macdonald’s similarly unravelling mum – in a rapidly growing chorus of gnashing judgment. It’s a drowning cacophony that Linda’s sessions with a top-notch Conan O’Brien’s therapy colleague cannot assuage as he ricochets between calming and infuriatingly smug.
Like Amy Adams and Nightbitch, Bronstein ramps up the unending grind of motherhood to skyrocketing blood pressure levels – no surprise, given she was a producer on the Safdie brothers’ unrelenting Good Time and Uncut Gems (co-written by her partner Ronald Bronstein).
And it’s a tour de force of matriarchal fury from Byrne, who fuels Linda with both a groaning air of despair and the rising hackles of a woman who will not be ridden roughshod over. It’ll propel you back out the cinema doors with a mighty roar.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You premiered at the Berlin Film Festival