The partitions are closing in on Linda (Rose Byrne), a therapist having the worst week of her life, in Mary Bronstein’s exhilarating anxiousness assault of a characteristic, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” And the ceiling is dropping out, too.
In author/director Bronstein’s second movie (2008’s “Yeast”), Byrne offers what is going to go down as one of many yr’s nice display performances, channeling Gena Rowlands in anguished close-up as a therapist whose ailing daughter wants around-the-clock care, whose condominium is flooded to spoil, and whose husband (Christian Slater) is nowhere to be discovered. This horror film of motherhood, which premiered at Sundance on Friday afternoon to a packed Library crowd, involves the competition with A24 already in place as distributor for later this yr.
Have been that not the case, consumers can be scrambling. Audiences have been wowed and pummeled in equal measure by a movie that’s earned comparisons to “Uncut Gems” (one other A24 title, and with overlap due to Josh Safdie as a producer) as Byrne has a wine- and weed-fueled nervous breakdown for 2 hours. Essentially the most mundane frustrations of the day, from harping parking attendees to her hapless sufferers, develop into operatic troubles as Australian “Damages” and “Bridesmaids” breakout Byrne offers a career-crowning flip.
Earlier than the buzzy, standing-room-only screening, Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani all however threw her introductory notes off the dais, whereas Bronstein urged audiences to overlook about no matter they have been going by way of as we speak (and all the things the world goes by way of) to submit themselves to her mad imaginative and prescient. Applause was enthusiastic afterward, however I heard a festivalgoer behind me whisper “darkish… disturbing” after the tip credit earlier than leaving the theater.
Becoming a member of Bronstein after the screening for a Q&A have been Byrne and her co-star Conan O’Brien, whom A24 personally known as upon to learn the script. He performs Linda’s depressing therapist, and mentioned he was stunned Byrne didn’t examine herself right into a hospital after manufacturing. (They’d 4 weeks of intense rehearsals earlier than filming happened on-location in Montauk in late summer time 2023.) Bronstein described the theme of the film and Linda’s driving pressure as “I need assistance, I need assistance, I need assistance, however please don’t assist me.” After her condominium floods and a gaping gap opens up within the ceiling, she’s compelled right into a lodge along with her daughter, who’s hooked as much as a machine with a tube in her abdomen, a walkie-talkie monitor beeping in Linda’s palms always as she careens between remedy appointments and rushes to purchase extra wine from the check-in desk downstairs. Extra breakdowns and past-trauma-resurfacing ensue.
“I had a private expertise with my daughter, which I received’t speak about intimately as a result of that’s her story to inform if she ever needs to inform it. I’d by no means seen a film earlier than the place a mom goes by way of a disaster with the kid, however our vitality shouldn’t be with the kid’s wrestle, it’s with the mom’s wrestle,” mentioned Bronstein, whose movie retains Linda’s daughter (Delaney Quinn) completely out of body till the final scene. Different co-stars embody “Patti Cake$” breakout Danielle Macdonald as one in every of Linda’s sufferers, one whose motherly anxieties begin to eerily resemble these of Andrea Yates, the Texan with postpartum despair sentenced to life in jail in 2002 for drowning her 5 youngsters. Classic information clips of her trial thread all through. A charmingly humorous A$AP Rocky additionally performs Linda’s neighbor on the lodge, who takes a perverse fascination with this epically floundering working mom.
“It’s about having to operate on the planet whereas coping with deep trauma that you haven’t any time to take out and truly give it,” Bronstein mentioned.
“It was fascinating as a result of she’s on this disaster, and I used to be like, ‘Who was she earlier than? Who’s that particular person?’ I used to be obsessive about that, who [she is] earlier than this trauma. She’s already on the finish of the highway once we meet her, and it will get even worse and worse,” Byrne mentioned.
O’Brien mentioned, “I’ve spent over 30 years speaking to actors and artists. To look at somebody of Rose’s caliber do what she does, you see her do it as soon as. I noticed her do it 15 instances… I don’t understand how you probably did that and never examine right into a hospital afterwards. I haven’t seen any actor, man or lady, maintain that degree for a whole film. I really feel like I’ve to go to a hospital now as a result of that is the primary time I’ve watched it. I’m a multitude.”
Count on Byrne to be within the awards dialog for an exhilarating film that’s a difficult sit, the explanation why movies are constructed round an all-timer efficiency to start with, and one which’s now the most well liked ticket at Sundance. It’s solely day two, however “If I Had Legs” simply took the defibrillators to Park Metropolis.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” premiered on the 2025 Sundance Movie Pageant and shall be launched by A24 later this yr.