Rose Byrne and Mary Bronstein On Motherhood, Trauma and the Absurdism of ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’

Expand it by five, set it in the “townie” section of Montauk at a seedy motel, tack on a host of needy therapy patients and an emotional affair, then add a child who is uniquely unwell with a long-term disorder for whom you are sole caretaker. This will only begin to look like Mary Bronstein’s stunning and confrontational film “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”

Led by what many have tipped as a career-best performance from Rose Byrne, the film jolted awake a subdued Sundance Film Festival earlier this year upon its world premiere. Byrne plays Linda, a struggling shrink whose boat captain husband (Christian Slater) has absconded on a luxury charter, leaving her in charge of their young daughter – one battling disordered eating issues and strapped to a feeding apparatus, but as willful and ornery as any early elementary school kid.