1 of 6 | Rose Byrne plays a struggling mother in "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You," which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Photo courtesy of A24
PARK CITY, UTAH Jan. 25 (UPI) -- If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which premiered Friday at the Sundance Film Festival, captures the demands placed on people by a negligent world. It is relatable for anyone who's dealt with a crisis, but it especially illustrates the burdens placed on mothers.
Linda (Rose Byrne) has a daughter (Delaney Quinn, kept off screen until the very end) with a medical condition that requires a feeding tube. While dealing with the hospital, a burst pipe opens a hole in her roof.
Linda's husband Charles (Christian Slater) is on a business trip and scolds her when they speak for not handling things well enough. Linda moves her daughter into a hotel room while contractors work on the house.
Writer-director Mary Bronstein captures the demands placed on individuals by institutions presumably assigned to help them. It creates a very real sense of anxiety about all the compounding requests pulling at Linda.
Dr. Spring (Bronstein) wants Linda to make an appointment to discuss her daughter's treatment plan. Dr. Spring keeps emphasizing to do this because it's important, but she doesn't tell Linda what will happen if she doesn't make it, nor how it would help her daughter who doesn't seem to be improving.
Dr. Spring implies she might end the girl's treatment, but won't commit to that in explicit words. It's frustrating that she won't tell Linda what she's signing up for.
Everyone can relate to frustrations with contractors. Furthermore, the hospital parking lot rules add difficulty to every appointment, instead of contributing to a system compatible with patients.
Linda's work as a therapist comes with burdens of its own, her very job being to help and advise others. In addition to bringing Linda their emotional problems, one patient (Danielle Macdonald) even leaves something behind in the office, creating another issue Linda has to resolve.
When Linda calls that patient's husband, he insists it's not his problem. That's a common theme of the movie.
Everyone wants Linda to solve every problem -- they judge for her ability to do so, but they're not doing any better or even helping. Even Charles asks Linda when things will go back to normal. She responds with the correct answer: they won't.
Linda knows many of these problems are irreversible. To demand they return to normalcy, and make Linda responsible for that return, is delusional.
Linda's problems are amplified because she can't get a straight answer to anything. She'll do what is needed if people ask, but they don't and then judge her for not accommodating them.
The hospital won't give her information unless she adheres to their schedule, yet Dr. Spring judges her for not taking better care of herself through the situation. Even her own therapist (Conan O'Brien) won't answer the questions Linda is asking.
When Linda asks her therapist for ideas to help her daughter gain weight, as required by Dr. Spring, he tells her to get a good night's sleep and to not take any drugs or alcohol. He's presumably looking out for Linda's wellbeing but ignores her primary concern.
This is true of not only the medical world, contractors and parking lots, but banking, insurance and other service industries, where one can't just ask a simple question and get an answer without a series of appointments. Even after, the question still might not be answered.
Dr. Spring also keeps telling Linda and other mothers to not blame themselves. Linda does feel at fault for the condition her daughter was born with and points out the hypocrisy of saying it's no one's fault and judging her anyway.
Linda gets a brief reprieve from the parking lot when another mother agrees to walk her child in, but that's only one day. There are some moments of calm where people actually help Linda, but they are few and far between. At the hotel, a clerk named James (A$AP Rocky) befriends Linda and shows her kindness.
But, whenever Linda finds a moment to herself, she soon has to put out another fire. Charles has some downtime on the business trip, which he is entitled to, but maybe he shouldn't mention a baseball game to his wife when she is holding down the fort back home.
Even when Linda tries to do something nice for her daughter, it becomes a problem that escalates and attracts more problems.
Metaphors abound that can add depth to the story, like the hole or the faceless child. But the linear story creates enough anxiety to make a relevant impact.
Likewise, the title could be literal. They've cut the legs out from under Linda so she can't fight back. In a Q&A following the premiere, Bronstein also encouraged viewers to find their own meaning.
Of course, one movie cannot solve all the social injustices facing women, but Linda's situations do come to a satisfying head. Byrne's powerhouse, vulnerable performance leads the way the entire time.
A24 will release If I Had Legs I'd Kick You this year.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.