If I Had Legs I’d Kick You review: Rose Byrne is tremendous as therapist
rose byrne earns strong critical praise for her lead turn in Mary Bronstein’s pitch-black horror-comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a film that places a therapist’s meltdown at the center of a story about postnatal depression and parental stress. The review highlights Byrne’s barnstorming performance and notes the film opens in UK and Irish cinemas on 20 February, positioning it for immediate audience and critical attention.
Rose Byrne’s relentless central performance
Byrne plays Linda, a psychotherapist under crushing pressure: her husband is away, and she is left to care for a sick infant whose face is withheld until the film’s final moments. The baby is intubated with a feeding machine that must be wheeled to medical appointments, underscoring the daily logistics that dominate Linda’s life. The review calls Byrne’s work a barnstormer, portraying a woman who must constantly appear composed as both a mother and a clinician while privately deteriorating.
A Lynchian take on motherhood
The film is framed as a psychological horror-comedy and is described as a flip-side to films like Eraserhead or Rosemary’s Baby: instead of supernatural apparitions, the dread arises from ordinary childcare problems and mounting isolation. Direction by Mary Bronstein leans on looming closeups that keep the heroine almost entirely in tight focus, amplifying claustrophobia. The tone blends brutal comedy — exemplified by a scene where a hamster is run over before cutting to a closeup of takeout food — with an overwhelming sadness conveyed through sustained panic.
Therapy, breakdown and bleak comedy
Linda’s attempts to cope are depicted through weed, wine and dysfunctional therapy sessions with an impatient colleague whose office sits next to hers. In one moment she quietly tells him, “I love you, ” a moment that underscores blurred professional boundaries and emotional exhaustion. Group therapy scenes at a day-care hospital, supervised by a brusque doctor in a cameo, offer bland reassurance to parents while simultaneously reprimanding Linda for missed appointments and her daughter’s failure to gain weight needed to remove the feeding tube. The review highlights a landscape of professionalized empathy: caregivers who keep distance to avoid being overwhelmed, leaving Linda more isolated.
Production credits in the review note Mary Bronstein as writer-director, with her husband Ronald Bronstein serving as a producer. The piece also observes an influence from Josh Safdie, visible in the film’s sprint toward a nervous breakdown and its uncomfortable intensity. A$ Rocky appears as James, the motel superintendent who becomes one of the few figures to show sustained care for Linda when a gaping hole in her apartment’s ceiling forces her to relocate.
rose byrne’s performance is presented as the film’s anchor: a sustained, intimate portrait of a mother and therapist losing cohesion under relentless pressure. The review emphasizes the director’s skill at conveying mounting panic and “all-consuming sadness” while allowing dark comedy to puncture the dread.
With the film opening in UK and Irish cinemas on 20 February, audience reactions and box-office response will determine how widely the film’s portrayal of postnatal depression and professional burnout is discussed. If viewers engage with the film’s uncompromising closeups and tonal shifts, its central performance could shape conversations about on-screen depictions of parental mental health.
