Warning: I’m going to try and be as objective as possible…
ROSE BYRNE WAS ROBBED OF THE BEST ACTRESS OSCAR!
…and breathe.
Yes, Jessie Buckley was good in Hamnet (I saw it, I ‘forgot’ to review it (which basically means I wrote the review then forgot to post it and then the moment passed, sigh.)), I mean that scream? Yeah, amazing, heart-wrenching, harrowing, chilling etc. etc. – I had no real issues with Buckley sweeping awards season and taking home the ultimate prize on Oscar night. But thanks to the Golden Globes’ tradition of splitting their lead actor and actress awards into drama and comedy/musical, Rose Byrne also walked away with a prize that night for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. A title like that is intriguing enough but adding in Byrne’s Globes win meant I was keen to check it out.
Comedy or musical…
I’m not sure I’d call If I Had Legs a comedy. Personally, I laughed a fair bit but I have both a slightly dark sense of humour and a high tolerance for stressful situations but I think generally, you’re not going to be rolling in the aisles watching this one.
Rose Byrne plays Linda, a stressed (putting it mildly) mother who has to navigate a series of catastrophes in both her personal and professional life all whilst dealing with her young daughter’s illness. This is sort of selling it short – because the catastrophes she’s dealing with include her apartment falling to pieces; a missing person, a fraught relationship with her therapist, and a husband who’s MIA (working, but still) and prone to lecturing her over the phone as to how she should be handling each disaster. Oh, and she’s pretty dependent on booze and drugs too because, who wouldn’t be?
If this sounds intense it’s because it is. The fact that Linda’s daughter is suffering from a serious (and ultimately mysterious, If I Had Legs generally doesn’t spoon-feed the audience anything) illness could send the film down a rather bleak route but it instead opts to amp up the tension and stress, creating a sense of anxiety that I’ve not seen in film in a long time. This tension is coupled with just enough comedy to stop you switching off and breathing into a paper bag.
Director and writer Mary Bronstein captures the tension marvellously through sound. We don’t see Linda’s daughter – the source of so much of her anxiety – instead we only hear the child – mainly whingeing and complaining and being a child (no shade, children are generally annoying) but the sheer volume of the complaints, coupled with all of the other disasters ensuing is enough to set your teeth on edge. We also don’t see Linda’s husband, he’s a (loud, annoying) voice at the end of the phone, constantly berating her, telling her how to fix things without ever truly listening to her. More noise. In fact, noise is constant. This movie never gives Linda (or the audience) a break, if she’s not already talking to doctors, therapists, contractors et al then her phone is ringing, music is playing, traffic is blaring, or, perhaps most ominously, her daughter’s feeding machine constantly whirring and buzzing. This sound design does such a wonderful job of reinforcing the fact that Linda never gets even a moment’s peace.
The real MVP though is Byrne. She plays Linda to perfection in what is easily a career-best performance. Showcasing a myriad of emotions that range from mild annoyance to a straight-up psychotic breakdown. Not since Lena Headey’s Cersei Lannister have I seen someone deliver such fantastic eye-twitch acting, and if we’re going to talk Oscar-worthy screams, the scene where Linda is talking to her landlord whilst in line at a store is pure cinema. We’re talking vein-popping, throat-ripping, red-in-the-face shouting, and it all feels so real and not performative in the slightest (seriously, someone check on Rose Byrne because how can someone so seemingly zen unleash such mania?)
It’s not all frustration and stress. Byrne expertly nails the comedic moments – no surprise really, she was Helen in Bridesmaids, one of the best comedies of the 2010s (fight me) so that checks out – but she also really excels in the (very few) quieter moments. You can really see that Linda is trying to be a good mother, she’s trying to say and do all the right things. It’s these tender moments that balance out the character of Linda who, regardless of the stress she’s under, is no saint. It’s this layered take, complete with the rollercoaster of emotions and ability to, at times, be pretty despicable that truly makes this performance a showstopper from Byrne. Had Hamnet not been the juggernaut at the box office that it was, Byrne’s Oscar chances would have been much higher, but given the slightly indie, slightly niche market that If I Had Legs appealed to, it was always going to be an uphill battle.
Beyond Byrne’s performance and Bronstein’s clever execution, If I Had Legs isn’t always firing from all cylinders. It has a decent but somewhat distracting supporting cast that includes Conan O’Brien and A$AP Rocky; and there’s an argument that the film’s climax is a bit of a ‘non-ending’ though, that’s open to interpretation which I think is ultimately the point.
Remember when interviewer Em Rusciano called Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande her autism and her ADHD on the Wicked press tour? Well, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Hamnet are my anxiety and my depression. Neither is an easy watch (though you may feel better about yourself after experiencing the sh*t show that Linda goes through) but if you could get through the heartbreak that is Hamnet, then you can get through the heart-attack that is If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is available to watch on the BFI Player now.