‘I just want someone to tell me what to do. No one will tell me...’
2025 was a big year for the difficulties of motherhood being represented on screen. Die My Love, Hamnet and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You all tackled the pressures of becoming a parent and while Hamnet seems to inexplicably be the one that is earning most of the plaudits, If I Had Legs… is a much more accurate portrayal of parenthood…
Linda (Rose Byrne) attempts to juggle the demands of parenting a child with a feeding disorder with her demanding job as a psychotherapist. This comes to a head when a water leak leads to a huge hole appearing in her ceiling which necessitates temporarily moving into a motel. Conan O’Brien appears as Linda’s own therapist, ASAP Rocky plays the motel superintendent and Christian Slater portrays Linda’s mostly absent husband.
Marketed as a black comedy, I found laughs few and far between here (although Conan’s performance is hilariously severe). Having spent the last 18 months or so scrapping for any amount of sleep available due to having a baby daughter of my own, the way that writer-director Mary Bronstein captures the disorientation and sluggishness of parenthood is eerily accurate. Byrne will often start staring into space mid conversation only to zone back in and find herself in a different place, sometimes talking to someone else. The incessant beeping of Linda’s daughter’s feeding machine is a constant and annoying presence, even when Linda isn’t with her daughter.
As we are seeing everything from Linda’s perspective, and often through the use of extreme close ups on Byrne’s tired eyes, we’re never entirely sure how much of what we are seeing is really happening. While the concept of an unreliable narrator is hardly revolutionary, the way that it is presented here recalls the innovation of The Father in its depiction of dementia such is its ingenuity.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You has received one Oscar nomination (for Byrne’s powerhouse performance), but for my money, this is the most effective of the three mum-noir films released in 2025 and I’d be giving Byrne the Best Actress gong as well. Put simply, nothing can prepare you for the challenges of parenthood, but Bronstein’s sophomore effort is the most accurate depiction of sleep deprivation brought on by caring for a child that I have seen – a powerful and compelling character study.
