"You see the face of the little girl at the anguished nexus of Linda's (Rose Byrne) life only once in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. Throughout the rest of the movie, the unnamed child, who's played by Delaney Quinn, is presented in fragments: a close-up of hands mangling a selection from a breakfast buffet, the curve of an ear when being spooned in bed, a tremulous voice coming from the back seat of the car."
"While no one mentions a diagnosis out loud, Linda's daughter appears to be suffering from ARFID, and her refusal to eat has been persistent enough to require a stomach tube and nightly infusions of nutrients by way of a feeding pump. That'd be a difficult situation at any time, but Linda, who works as a psychotherapist, is also solo parenting while her ship-captain husband, Charles (Christian Slater), is at sea for several weeks."
"The stress of these experiences warps the film's visual style, forming an indirect distortion field that prevents us from seeing Linda's daughter directly and turns Linda herself into a gravitational force pulling cinematographer Christopher Messina's camera I'm not touching you close to Byrne's face for long stretches. Some films make a point of not pulling away from their main character's uglier moments."
Linda is a solo parent facing her unnamed daughter's persistent refusal to eat, presented as ARFID, requiring a stomach tube and nightly nutrient infusions via a feeding pump. A ceiling collapse forces them into a motel while her husband, Charles, is at sea for weeks. The camera fragments the child into body parts and sounds, revealing her presence only indirectly. Cinematography stays tightly focused on Linda, using close-ups and claustrophobic framing to externalize her anxiety and self-loathing. The film's visual style warps under stress, leaving little room in the frame for anyone beyond Linda's emotional gravity.
Read at Vulture
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]