If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

From the outset of Mary Bronstein’s second feature, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, it quickly becomes apparent to the viewer that they are never going to see the daughter of Linda (Rose Byrne), the “anti-heroine,” of sorts, that anchors the entire film. Of course, the only reason one might refer to Linda as an anti-heroine is because she tends to embody the type of woman who, for some, equates to a “deadbeat mom.” Not in a financial sense, but in the way that suggests she isn’t “doing enough.” Not being emotionally present enough—let alone physically present enough. The kind of criticism that gets lobbed far more often at mothers than it does at fathers.

This is addition to an accusation like, “Mommy is stretchable.” Which is the first line of dialogue uttered both in the film and by Linda’s daughter (the disembodied voice of Delaney Quinn) as Bronstein starts with a close-up of Linda’s face (mostly the eyes) before gradually zooming out while the doctor, also offscreen, probes, “What do you mean by ‘stretchable’?” Linda’s daughter clarifies, “Daddy’s hard, you can’t move him. He gets mad, and that’s it. Mommy gets mad too, but…she’s more like putty. And she gets sad too. That’s when it’s the most stretch.”

The entire time Linda’s daughter is making this all too telling analogy, Linda’s face expresses a combination of things: irritation—both in general and over the fact that her daughter is selling her out by giving the “wrong” answers to this doctor—and total disagreement with what’s being said about her. As if she’s not even there, to boot. And so, finally, Linda speaks up for herself, insisting that she is not, in fact, “stretchable” or “like putty.” As is the common assumption about women in general and mothers in particular. Perhaps along with the assumption that to be a mother is to be, in some way, inherently sad. A characteristic that Linda’s daughter points out to the doctor as well, who also tends to agree just by observing Linda’s general demeanor.

Linda counters, “I can be sad. I mean, I’m allowed to be sad, right?” But no, the truth is women—mothers—are not “allowed” to be sad. Because to show sadness of any kind is not only to show weakness, but to indicate to the child or children one is caring for that they are vulnerable, which, in turn, can cause anxiety and stress to the “spawn” that assumes their parent is some kind of “rock” that can always be leaned on without crumbling. But it’s quite evident from the outset of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You that Linda is very much doing just that—crumbling, unraveling at the seams, all those types of metaphors.

As a result, Linda then gets straight to the point with the doctor, telling her she wants the feeding tube inside her daughter to be removed. That the plan to have her “get better” and then remove the tube isn’t working because her daughter is relying on it like a crutch. In fact, the daughter, despite never appearing onscreen until the very end (so that the audience, too, can feel an inexplicable sense of anxiety about what her condition actually is), comes across as rather difficult and a bit bratty. But maybe that’s part of the point—to convey how the daughter seems even to her own mother, undeniably burning the candle at both ends, and patently sick and tired of everything. Including her equally as emotionally demanding job as a psychotherapist. Which is so emotionally demanding that she herself needs a psychotherapist. One that, like her daughter, also isn’t given a name, though he is played by Conan O’Brien, who is surprisingly effective as a silent, overtly judgmental and contemptuous person that Linda so desperately wants some real advice and guidance from. Not to mention some approval. Since she can’t seem to get it from anyone else, least of all the society that has set her up to inevitably fail. Again, as both a woman and a mother.

In both roles, Linda has nothing and no one to turn to for help or relief, save for the mounds of cheese that have slid off the top of the pizza slices inside the box that falls out of her hand when she stumbles on the sidewalk. This after her daughter complains that she doesn’t want pizza with cheese on it. And so it is that Linda has to find the humor in the situation by joking that her daughter clearly willed the box to fall so that the cheese would come off. Because what else can someone do but try to laugh to keep from crying? That is, apart from eat their feelings.

This is exactly what Linda does when she and her daughter get home and she has a few moments to herself alone with the pizza. Enough time to decide that sucking/chewing on the triangle-shaped cheese globs that have fallen off the dough is the only thing that’s going to provide her with something akin to “comfort.” And, in this regard, Linda bears plenty of similarities to another character that Byrne recently played: Physical’s Sheila Rubin, a bulimic mother with a daughter that she, too, is constantly tasked with “watching.” “Minding.” Even though all that both of these mothers want to do is just get five seconds to themselves without being called upon, or asked, or in some way interrupted from having a goddamn thought of their own. And one that isn’t somehow wrapped up in concern for others.

That the film was inspired by Bronstein’s own real-life experience rooted in these types of feelings is undoubtedly why If I Had Legs I’d Kick You feels so authentic despite its many instances of magical realism (particularly in the third act). As the writer-director told The Hollywood Reporter regarding “the creative genesis” for the project,

I was dealing with some very challenging health issues with my daughter, and it required us to relocate from New York to San Diego for treatment. During the time—eight months—my daughter and I shared a very small, hospital-subsidized hotel room, which was in a really weird motel [though it’s unclear if said ‘weird motel’ had an A$AP Rocky type as its superintendent]. So, I was displaced and under so much stress, and I just started unraveling. I kept treating it like it was temporary, even though it kept going on and on. I had no space of my own. At night, when my daughter would go to sleep, I would go into the bathroom and hang out on the bathroom floor because it was the only place I could turn a light on. At some point, I decided to sort of take control—even though I didn’t know at the time that this was what I was doing—by turning this experience into a piece of writing. When we make art, we do have a form of control. So, that’s where I started. This project started from a very low place.

And that much is obvious throughout the increasingly tense narrative (so tense, in truth, that it’s hardly a coincidence that a Safdie brother [Josh] would feel compelled to help produce it). One that underscores all the ways in which parents—but, yes, mothers in particular—are left in the lurch to fend for themselves when it comes to “figuring out” how to do what is inarguably one of the most important but also most thankless jobs in the world: care for a child.

Conveying the crushing weight of that kind of pressure and responsibility without any kind of community to rely on for support is what Bronstein does with relentless efficacy through a combination of merciless tight shots and the aforementioned use of magical realism. To that point, this form of storytelling harkens back to something that the doctor (played by none other than Bronstein herself) tells Linda with a somewhat condescending air at the beginning of the movie: “Perception is reality.” However, the reality of being a mother is something that no amount of “perception” can prepare anyone for. Which is part of why, oftentimes, all a mother would like to do is heave herself into the goddamn ocean and give up on this losing battle. But then, of course, she wouldn’t be able to win the war.