In If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You , Rose Byrne's face becomes the close-up canvas for a wildly unsettling comedy-drama. Written and directed by Mary Bronstein — her first feature in 17 years following Yeast — the film follows Byrne as Linda, a mother hanging on by a thread during what appears to be a prolonged nervous spiral. Mirroring her experience, it's a deeply anxiety-inducing work, whose high-strung energy is owed to a daring audio-visual approach that ought not to be sustainable, but ends up hair-raising and hilarious in the long run. The result, in a word, is excellent.

Through their deft command of drama, Byrne and Bronstein make a formidable pair, as they present the slow demolition of one the most alluringly unpleasant protagonists in modern cinema (alongside Marianne Jean-Bap

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