"Over the preceding hour, we've seen Linda (Rose Byrne) hit a near-comical breaking point in every area of her life - her sick daughter's unrelenting needs, her absent husband's rebukes, her landlord's nonchalance about the gaping hole in the ceiling of her Long Island apartment, her therapist's frosty dismissal. She too is a therapist, and that isn't going so great either. Suddenly, all these defeats coalesce in a way that could inspire anyone to hurl themself into the ocean."
"Linda's unraveling escalates when her troubled client Caroline (Danielle Macdonald) emails her a video of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001 after developing postpartum psychosis. "Better to tie a millstone around your neck and throw yourself into the sea, rather than cause someone to stumble," Yates says in her first prison interview, reciting unsettling New Testament scripture."
Mary Bronstein's first movie, the acerbic 2008 comedy Yeast, co-starring Greta Gerwig, received little attention. She considered the film mistimed because audiences were unwilling to engage with its aggression and objectionable characters. Seventeen years later, moods have shifted and her second film, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, is being embraced for similar aggression as viewers feel angry and overwhelmed. The film's protagonist, Linda (Rose Byrne), endures mounting defeats: her sick daughter's nonstop needs, an absent husband's rebukes, a landlord's indifference to a gaping ceiling hole, and a dismissive therapist. A client, Caroline, emails a video of Andrea Yates reciting New Testament scripture, and Bronstein deliberately situates Linda at a motel near a beach to emphasize water imagery.
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