If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You Parent Guide

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is one of the most unnerving and unsettling films I’ve ever seen. It feels like being dropped into the middle of an anxiety attack that doesn’t let up until you leave the theatre.

An exhausted mother, Linda (Rose Byrns), juggles her job as a therapist with taking care of her daughter (Delaney Quinn), who has an unnamed illness requiring a feeding tube. To make matters worse, her husband (Christian Slater) is away for months at a time. When the ceiling of their apartment collapses, forcing Linda and her daughter into a rundown motel, she reaches her breaking point. As her husband grows frustrated with her inability to get the landlord to fix their home and her daughter’s doctor (Mary Bronstein) threatens to remove them from the treatment program if the girl doesn’t gain weight, Linda’s patients spiral into deeper distress, and even her own therapist (Conan O’Brien) turns increasingly hostile, she begins to unravel completely.

This film is an abstract exploration of the suffocating stress and pain of motherhood, capturing the sense that the entire world is conspiring against you, or cutting you off at the knees, so to speak. It’s not a story in the traditional sense; it’s more of an experience, a feeling. While there are recognizable beats like the absence of Linda’s husband, her growing bond with the motel superintendent James (A$AP Rocky), and her therapy sessions (both as practitioner and patient), the movie resists resolution or explanation. If you need narrative closure, this isn’t the film for you. The focus, visually and emotionally, is wholly on Linda.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a highly polished production. The performances are exceptional, the cinematography haunting, and the film’s message deeply resonant. Yet, I’d hesitate to recommend it widely, if at all. Every scene is open to interpretation, and you won’t find definitive answers, not even from the director (trust me, I checked). From an entertainment standpoint, it’s not for everyone, though this movie would make for a fascinating subject in an English essay. The film is less explicit than it is disturbing. Still, be warned: it features alcohol and drug use and plentiful profanity. More to the point, the movie also provides conversations and depictions of graphic gore, both human and rodent (in separate scenes) and several distressing medical situations that could be triggering for those with related trauma.

In essence, If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You was a cinematic masterpiece that I hope to never see or even think of again.

About author

Alisha Bagshaw

Alisha Bagshaw is completing her BCST in Child and Youth Care Counselling and is working toward a career in psychology and policy advocacy. She enjoys reading, watching movies, and subjecting her husband and friends to in-depth (and usually unsolicited) synopses and thematic analysis.