'Therapist on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' or perhaps right in the middle of one might have been a better title for "If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You" as therapist Linda tries to cope with an ailing daughter, an absent husband and a great big hole in her ceiling. Described, at least by the folks who give out the Golden Globes, as a comedy this is indeed a darkly funny but deeply disturbing picture of a mental breakdown seen from the perspective of the woman having the breakdown.
In this role, Rose Byrne, (never off the screen), is terrific, terrifyingly so in fact. Writer/Director Mary Bronstein has given her the part of a lifetime and Byrne grabs it with both hands and then shakes it to death but while Byrne may never be off the screen it's far from being a one-woman show.
On her road to unraveling we also get to know her own therapist, (a beautifully cast Conan O'Brien), her very unstable patient, (a superb Danielle Macdonald), the drug dealer next door, (rapper A$AP Rocky) and her daughter's doctor, (Bronstein herself). All are beautifully played and provide much needed relief from Byrne's very obvious pain, not than I would have wanted to miss a minute of it.
The movie itself is far from an easy watch. Bronstein films Byrne's fractured life in a fractured style, for example we never see the child's face until the end, we just hear her demanding voice and is that hole in the ceiling a portal to the Twilight Zone? It might as well be for all that Bronstein shows us. Yes, this is a strange movie but also a brilliant one and I found it a pleasure welcoming Bronstein back into the cinematic fold. Others haven't been so forgiving; go expecting a comedy and you are bound to be bitterly disappointed.
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