If I had legs I’d kick you

Release date: 10 October 2025 (USA)

Director: Mary Bronstein

Starring: Rose Byrne, Conan O'Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Delaney Quinn, Christian Slater, and A$AP Rocky

Producers: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein, Conor Hannon, Eli Bush, Sara Murphy, Richie Doyle, Ryan Zacarias

Screenplay: Mary Bronstein

Running time: 1h 53m

Distributed by: A24

Right, remember when I wrote about how I don’t mind them showing films about the Holocaust but I do mind them showing films about post partum psychosis and the like? And how relieved I was that we didn’t get shown Die My Love?

Well.

Let’s start with the title, which is another baffling one. Does this phrase mean something in America? Is the person saying this phrase without legs? If not, what is the point of this phrase, because you do have legs and therefore you could kick someone. For instance, I have legs and I would like to kick the person who chose to screen this film for a bunch of post partum women and their babies.

Overwhelmed motherhood does not normally look this stunning

I think this is probably a really good film, but in the circumstances it was a bit hard to watch, to put it mildly. Rose Byrne is a mother on the EDGE, with a daughter who is suffering from a serious food aversion, a totally absent partner (he exists only on the phone, until the very end when he rather marvellously turns out to be Christian Slater), a massive leak in her flat and a very stressful job as a therapist. The latter gives us a wonderful opportunity to introduce a whole extra side plot about another woman with a child who is on the edge of madness, just to really hammer the point home.

Here are some people who are going to struggle with this film: Mothers. Would be mothers. Therapists. Renters. People with eating disorders. People who own hamsters. All men. I think actually of all these categories, therapists might have the hardest time - I immediately advised mine to take a wide berth.

The portrayal of men is savage, and yes, not all men, but I did find it really cathartic to watch. At one point Rose is on the phone to the husband of a patient, who has left the baby and absconded. ‘You need to come and pick up your child’ she says, and after a long, confusing silence the guy simply responds ‘…but I’m at work?’ Somehow this really summed up something about the huge, yawning gap between men and women when it comes to childcare.

This makes this film look like some sort of creature feature which, trust me, it is not

We don't see Rose’s daughter for nearly all of the film, but she is a constant source of deep, painful anxiety. There’s a scene with a feeding tube which I will struggle to get out of my mind, during which the entire audience (inexplicably, other people had also chosen to put themselves through this film) turned their backs on the screen in agony. Feeding, I have learned by now, is one of the great anxieties of early parenting, and how clever of this film to pick up on that and turn it into a huge, upsetting driver of the plot. Diabolical.

What else? There’s a massive hole in Rose’s ceiling which I think is somehow a metaphor for the hole in her daughter’s stomach? Sometimes she looks into it and hears her mother speaking to her, for reasons I’m still not totally clear on. She takes a man to look at it with her and he falls down and suffers a truly awful leg fracture. Another scene which caused total bodily recoil. Oh, and a hamster gets flattened, which also tapped into some deep rooted childhood anxiety. Truly, we all left this film vibrating with jitters.

Live footage of me on my way out of the cinema

Anyway, if you’re not a person with an eating disorder, a therapist, a person in therapy, a man, a person who rents, a woman or a person who owns a hamster, I highly recommend this film. Do let me know what you make of it. I myself plan on watching it again in approximately 35 years, once I’ve finished therapy, got over absolutely all my anxieties and insecurities and feel perfectly comfortable with every decision I have ever made. Looking forward to that.

Good things: Rose Byrne is wonderful. Somehow she has passed me by so far, but this is a stonking performance.

Bad things: I can’t stress enough, look away during the stomach tube scene and do not even attempt this film if you own a hamster.

My review: I am not well placed to provide an objective review of this film, as previously discussed

Lily’s review: 0 poos. I truly hope we’ve not reached the stage where she’s taking any of these films in.

Next week: The Bride. More from the season of Jessie Buckley!