#rose-byrne

#rose-byrne

Spectators in Harvard Square looked on with a mix of confusion, amusement, and appreciation last week as the Hasty Pudding Theatrical Society honored actress Rose Byrne with a parade down Massachusetts Avenue. As the Pudding's 2026 Woman of the Year, Byrne rode slowly down the street in a Bentley convertible - flanked by costumed students, kazoo players, and people squeezing rubber chickens.

It's this series of mundane problems that start to snowball until Linda is about to reach her breaking point. And that's where If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Mary Bronstein's surreal and tense new psychological thriller, holds you in its iron grip, forcing you to feel every new stressor and inconvenience that Linda is experiencing, until you feel like you are about to explode.

He co-created it, co-wrote it, stars as its lead, convinced the great and good of Hollywood to be in it with him and directed it with such a vaulting sense of ambition that, when it won more Emmys than any other comedy in history a few weeks ago, nobody even flinched. The Studio is the show that has cemented Rogen's status as a comic visionary.

If you weren't lucky enough to attend this year's Cannes or Sundance Film Festivals, the first day of TIFF is for you. The festival often features the best films from those earlier fests, so I broke the seal bright and early and braved the rain for Mary Bronstein's stressful but rewarding If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. The film got some of the best reviews at Sundance in January.

Linda, a therapist in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, faces her daughter's mysterious illness and a collapsing apartment while dealing with her own deteriorating sanity.