<\/p>\n
How DO you juggle it all? Mothers tend to get asked that question \u2014 often in a chipper tone, expecting a chipper response. Rarely do those asking stick around to hear that perhaps those juggling balls are hovering precariously, about to crash to the ground.<\/p>\n
One senses that Linda, the overburdened mom embodied by a brave and committed Rose Byrne<\/a> in Mary Bronstein\u2019s \u201cIf I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You,\u201d<\/a> would freely expand on that \u2014 if anyone cared. But Linda is nobody\u2019s priority.<\/p>\n She\u2019s certainly not her husband\u2019s priority; a cruise captain, he phones in from afar, checking that she\u2019s properly caring for their ill child and freely admonishing her when she’s not. A working therapist, she\u2019s certainly not the priority of her patients in various stages of crisis.<\/p>\n She\u2019s also not the priority of doctors supervising her daughter\u2019s illness \u2014 an eating disorder so severe that the child needs a feeding tube. Even the contractor who\u2019s allegedly fixing that hole in Linda\u2019s ceiling puts her at the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n Grasping all this in the early scenes, we suddenly understand two bold creative decisions Bronstein makes, in only her second feature as director.<\/a> The first: Her camera rests close \u2014 excruciatingly close \u2014 on Byrne\u2019s face throughout. It\u2019s as if to say, nobody else is paying attention to her, but we sure will.<\/p>\n Second, and most radically: We hear Linda\u2019s child but do not see her. At first this feels uncomfortable, even frustrating. But Bronstein has explained it simply: The moment you see a child\u2019s face, that\u2019s where your empathy goes (especially a sick one). In fact, this child, played by a sweet-voiced Delaney Quinn, is not even named. This movie’s about Linda, remember?<\/p>\n Thus, it is Linda\u2019s face alone \u2014 in such severe close-up that we could be inside her very pores \u2014 that we first see. She\u2019s in a tense meeting with her child and their doctor (played by a stern Bronstein herself.) Linda desperately wants the feeding tube removed. The doctor says the girl must reach a target weight first.<\/p>\n The tube will become, of course, both a physical and emotional tether \u2014 and a symbol of the guilt Linda feels at being unable to solve this crisis.<\/p>\n Heck, she can\u2019t even handle arranging repairs to the gaping abyss at home. Her bedroom\u2019s ceiling has collapsed just before the opening credits, forcing mother and daughter into a crummy beachside motel. (The location is in the Hamptons on Long Island, not all corners of which are glamorous.) This ugly hole will serve, just like the feeding tube, as a portal to something much bigger and even fantastical.<\/p>\n Arguing with the repair guy, Linda screams into a pillow in despair. One would think such things as damaged property \u2014 or a nasty parking attendant, who also drives Linda mad \u2014 would be minuscule compared to the agony of a sick child. But for Linda, the big and the small conflate. There’s no longer any perspective of scale.<\/p>\n Perhaps this is why, barely able to focus on herself, Linda also badly mismanages one of her patients \u2014 a new mother (Danielle Macdonald, excellent) in full-on, scary postpartum depression.<\/p>\n The only person Linda can vent to is her own therapist, played by, yes, Conan O\u2019Brien, in his dramatic acting debut. For once, and on purpose, O\u2019Brien is the farthest thing from funny \u2014 a sour man unable to help Linda out of her spiraling mess. (Speaking of a spiraling mess, there are definite echoes of \u201cUncut Gems\u201d<\/a> \u2014 that film\u2019s co-director, Josh Safdie, is a producer here \u2014 and its propulsive journey into madness.)<\/p>\n