If I Had Legs I’d Kick You review: This is the role of a lifetime, and Rose Byrne embraces it with everything she’s got

FILM

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You ★★★½

(M) 113 minutes

Motherhood is a minefield. This idea is currently in vogue among certain female filmmakers. In Die My Love , British director Lynne Ramsay has Jennifer Lawrence undergo an emotional implosion under the pressure of marriage to a man who leaves all the parenting to her. And in Mary Bornstein’s new film, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You , Rose Byrne is in a similarly distraught state.

A$AP Rocky, left, and Rose Byrne in a scene from If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Credit: AP

For most of the film her husband Charles (Christian Slater) is just a voice on the telephone, nagging her with demands that she get a grip and soldier on.

Bornstein came to the screen in 2008 via the “mumblecore movement”, a variety of low-budget independent cinem