Rose Byrne has always been an MVP here in Australia, but the rest of the world hasn’t appreciated the full range of her talents. She first gained recognition abroad in middling thriller fare like Wicker Park (2006), but it was around the time of 2011’s Bridesmaids that the world became aware of Byrne the comedienne, which is where she’s spent most of her time in the years since. But the dramatic actress we saw playing the unstable woman in Wicker Park was always waiting to come back out again, and Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You gives Byrne that opportunity, not to mention finally a showcase for talent that earns her the right to be front and centre in a film, rather than someone else’s second banana.

Legs is the second film this spring to deal with a harried mother losing her grip on reality, though for those who saw it as the MIFF opening night film, it predated Lynn Ramsay’s Die My Love on the way to the big screen. Both films are grounded in realism more than their more metaphorical predecessor, Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, though it’s not like Aronosky did something that had never been done before. Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown have been with us at the cinema for a long time, even before Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). (Which, for the record, is a match for these films in title only.)

To be living the waking nightmare of Byrne’s Linda is to be really knocked around by Bronstein, both if you’re Linda, and if you’re someone in the audience watching her. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a stressful film, throwing as many jagged edges at you as Ramsay’s film, but in a manner that feels more relentless. This is a good thing, but it also can make for a queasy time at the movies – which is certainly Bronstein’s intention, as this mirrors some women’s experience of motherhood.

Linda is a therapist who has her own therapist (played by Conan O’Brien, in a dramatic role he was originally reluctant to take). The immediate reason she needs her own therapist is that she’s not coping with the eating disorder of her daughter, who is about ten years old but is neither named or seen on camera, with only her unending stream of anxieties audible through her dialogue. It’s pretty much a feedback loop between the two, each likely making the other this way, though perhaps without Linda’s own issues, her daughter wouldn’t have so many.

The one she has is a pretty big one, though. So revlused by food that she’s unable to eat, the daughter receives nutrients dripped into her nightly through a feeding tube just above her navel. Even so she still is shy of “making weight” with the doctor monitoring her progress (played by the director herself), meaning that this doctor might have to examine whether this is the correct home environment for the girl.

Linda has a partner, also only heard for most of the movie (though his voice over the phone is very recognisably Christian Slater), but he’s absent – literally, in that his job as a cruise ship captain keeps him away from home for long stretches, but also figuratively, as his apparent engagement with the health of his daughter comes off as a lot of complaining and criticising.

Linda’s also got both a literal and metaphorical issue in the form of a giant hole that’s broken through the roof of their apartment, flooding the place and leaving it uninhabitable. So she and her daughter move into a seedy motel where they befriend James (A$AP Rocky), the largely benevolent superintendent who might also be able to hook Linda up with some self medication. Meanwhile, Linda’s got her own patient with severe problems coping with motherhood: Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), who might be on the verge of abandoning her newborn.

For a film that presents most of its plot as plausible developments during a very intense period for one overwhelmed woman, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You also contains numerous elements that could be interpreted metaphorically. Not to suggest too much impact of Aronofsky on Bronstein, but mother! also had a hole in a floor that was more like organic material becoming infected than damaged wood. Then there’s some possible doubling going on here, as the Russian nesting doll of relationships between patient and therapist means that Linda is also crossing boundaries with O’Brien’s character that she tells her own patients they can’t cross. Even with the relative stability of O’Brien’s therapist, there’s a sense that no one in this movie really has their head screwed on straight.

And Byrne dives right in. There’s a hostility to her interactions with almost everyone in this film, though it’s rarely due to anyone’s outward hostility – except for the obnoxious girl working in the motel bottle shop who’s always dicking around with whether she can sell Linda alcohol. It’s that when you’re in the state Linda is in, everything feels like an assault, like the world telling you you’re not good enough, like being accused that it’s all your fault. Mothers of children with severe eating impairments surely blame themselves more than anyone could ever blame them externally. To be a mother is a bottom line, “buck stops here” sort of experience, even if a good therapist would try to tell you otherwise. And if Legs is any indication, good therapists are pretty hard to come by.

Byrne is on the edge of total collapse at all times, and Bronstein’s film is only leavened by the blackest of humour. It isn’t clear whether If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is ever going to steer itself away from the oncoming headlights. And that might have been a profound creative choice, if one that would have been very difficult to stomach. Without saying exactly what choice Legs does make, let’s just say it does have some hope for Linda and others like her. After this rollercoaster, that’s a relief.

 

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is currently playing in cinemas.