In the grand tradition of the Safdie brothers and Ronald Bronstein’s corpus of anxiety-inducing cinema, Mary Bronstein gifts the world with her version of a relentless 114-minute panic attack with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Anyone (like yours truly) well-versed in the realm of anxiety and panic attacks immediately knows the difference. Both are uncomfortable to varying degrees and extremely unpleasant, yet one is far more disruptive than the other.
Anxiety attacks are usually short and less intense, even if they are not fun to have. In contrast, panic attacks are a total nightmare brought upon by decades of unprocessed trauma that still lingers in the back of our heads, waiting to return to us. In fact, this writer is currently penning this review a day after suffering a massive panic attack and almost canceled plans to see a movie that certainly would not be a good idea to experience a few hours after another sleepless, dread-inducing night.
But since panic attacks are theoretically not dangerous or life-threatening, other than your body expressing a feeling of extreme unease, I went anyway, and what I saw was a reflection of the hell many of us who suffer from these issues deal with. The mere thought of another panic attack puts your body in a stress state and immediately triggers one, which the protagonist of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You experiences in ways few who even suffer from them can imagine.
Of course, I cannot relate to the motherly day-to-day tasks of protagonist Linda (Rose Byrne), a therapist who tries her best to ensure her sick daughter (Delaney Quinn) is taken care of, while juggling a thousand different tasks just to get by, while her husband, Charles (Christian Slater), is off in the sky. We don’t know what disease Linda’s daughter has, but it’s pretty serious—and advanced—bringing much stress to an already stressful, impossible life the mother has set for herself. The therapist (Conan O’Brien) she sees at the clinic she works at is completely helpless, and, most recently, she must now live at a hotel, as part of the ceiling from her apartment tore off.
However, one can entirely grasp the anxiety she lives with and the utter panic she experiences daily. She wants to do right by her daughter and ensure she is taken care of, but it looks as if the world is out to get her and take her daughter (who doesn’t have a name and isn’t seen for the bulk of the runtime) away before she even has a chance to heal.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is a distressing but compelling piece of work
Nothing’s going right, and nothing will go right by the end. In fact, the panic attack she feels intensifies to the point where Christopher Messina’s already erratic camera blurs and represents her imperceptible, chaotic mindset that, sadly, won’t die down anytime soon. Some try to give a helping hand, such as hotel superintendent James (A$AP Rocky) and Dr. Spring (Mary Bronstein), but Linda shuts both of them out and thinks she can do it all on her own. The truth is: she can’t, and it becomes increasingly apparent by the time the movie progresses.
Many could compare Bronstein’s feature to her husband Ronald’s collaborations with Josh (acting as an executive producer for this film) and Benny Safdie, most notably Good Time and Uncut Gems. These two movies put the brothers on the map way beyond their independently produced masterpieces, as they captured a true sense of anxiety in ways that no other filmmaker did with such artistic efficiency and a controlled sense of chaos. Good Time is far more stressful than Uncut Gems, with the latter being more comedic than the former, yet they push the same angsty buttons no matter the situations the Safdie brothers depict in their films.
Strangely enough, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You does share many visual similarities with Uncut Gems, especially its opening credits sequence, as it plunges into the inside of a hole before its title card appears. However, unlike the Safdie film, which represented the bright, hypnotic colors of its prized opal before transitioning into the inside of Adam Sandler’s colon, the hole itself is filled with darkness, and no glimmering light for Linda to attach herself to, or at least make her realize that this period she is in will pass. Perhaps the panic attack will, but the mere thought of a recurring one will give her anxiety, which she tries to numb with nicotine – a drug that only reinforces stress – and THC, making her hallucinate.
Some segments of the film are more comedic than others. However, it’s more in appearances from Safdie/Elara alums, such as Daniel Zolgahdri, from Owen Kline’s Funny Pages, wearing a shirt that repeatedly states the F-word on it, representing all of us who deal with anxiety daily, than in active moments where the movie takes a breath and makes us laugh. The visual language responds to the foreboding dread Linda feels, always focusing on her face the entire time, and never once showing what her daughter looks like, other than close-up shots of the tube on her belly keeping her alive.
Rose Byrne gives the best performance of her career
We’re always in proximity to the protagonist, whether we want to or not. The camera never looks away from her, even during conversations with other characters. Linda is always at the center of the frame and the focal point of attention of Messina’s lens. Being so requires a decisive turn from Rose Byrne, who delivers the best and most Oscar-worthy performance of her career. I hate to reduce a portrayal to “Oscar-worthy,” because we should talk about anything but awards prospects when assessing a film. Yet, Byrne is so magnetic and heartbreaking that it’s hard not to see her walk away without at least one golden statuette.
She represents the torment of so many anxiety-prone individuals who are stuck in a cyclical rut of isolation and would rather not seek out help or talk to someone about their feelings. This alone creates even more panic than the one they already have, which is further exacerbated by what she believes is antagonistic behavior from everyone else, even though they all want to support and help her. The perpetual nightmare Linda lives in is also intensified by the things she sees – and hears. Her senses are heightened (or distorted) in the real world based on the perception of her constant nightmares.
It’s exactly the type of sounds and images anxious people feel regularly, whether before, during, and after panic attacks. The constant dread never goes away, as much as we try to down it out with music or other noises to make our mind think of something else. It can momentarily disappear, but it will come back, one way or another, and the feeling one will get when it eventually returns won’t be good.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You also explores the complexities of motherhood and the stress that comes with wanting to do what is always right for your children, even if the world seems “against you.” However, I was so taken aback by how Bronstein nailed the feeling of never-ending angst as it mounts to a point of no return, in a final scene so devastating it may move you to tears, that everything else seemed futile in the context of a person who lives with anxiety daily. Life has its ups and downs, but when things start to go in a different direction than you’d hope, climbing back up is an even bigger challenge than expected.
With If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Mary Bronstein represents the Hell of living in such a stark way that all you want to do is hug Linda and hope she will find the most joyful parts of being human again. But since she lives in a constant state of panic, a hug won’t do her any good. She needs to scream – as loudly as possible. When everything goes wrong and continues to do so, all you need is the opposite of what you think you need. It’s saved me more than once, and it may save Linda from further suffering. Scream, and don’t be afraid if anyone else hears you. The louder, the better.
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