There is a dark side that lives inside all of us, even within the most compassionate, selfless, and loving among us. And the unsettling experiences that feed this side, that expand its imagination, have a peculiar allure of their own. With If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, as we are dragged into the dark inner world of a mother, we experience a viewing journey where we feel the suffocating weight of our own dead ends deep in our bones, accompanied by a strange sense of pleasure.
We watch a mother who can no longer be described as being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but rather someone who is fully living inside one. Alcohol, drugs, sleeplessness, anger, helplessness, remorse, exhaustion, and guilt are all felt with full force. As she is thrown back and forth between imagination and reality, our own heads begin to spin along with hers.
Every day, as she drives the roads to the hospital for her daughter’s illness, a daughter whose face we never truly see, there is no father, no doctor, no colleague, and no friend to guide her, to tell her what to do, or to share her burden. Her sense of being lost, her emotional disintegration, and the whirlpools of her soul, melting day by day in the acid of anger, create an effect on the viewer that feels almost like a panic attack.
It is possible to find traces of every experience in which healthy days become entangled with illness, hospital visits become routine, and reality blends into nightmares. Like Nightbitch, the film carries a similar effect in its depiction of the maddening power of motherhood. But even if you are not a mother, it is still possible to recognize the suffocating traces of your own difficult periods within this film.
One of the biggest surprises and most enjoyable elements within the film’s darkness is the charismatic performance and playful character of James, portrayed by musician A$AP Rocky, Rihanna’s long-time partner. On the other hand, Rose Byrne’s widely praised performance as the film’s central character, Linda, has also been reflected in award-season nominations.
The visible holes in Linda’s life turn into physical manifestations of the emptiness in her soul, pulling her deeper and deeper into a swamp. The film does not offer grand statements about how to fill these voids or how to escape drowning. Instead, it gently reminds us that the feeling of falling into emptiness, as if plunging from the top floor of a skyscraper, is not something unique to us. And by reminding us of this, it allows us, if only slightly, to take a breath of relief.