If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

I do love a memorable title, and this movie lives up to its. Rose Byrne delivers a relentlessly compelling performance as a therapist named Linda whose life is crashing down around her, just as the ceiling in her apartment has. We follow her in mostly tight close-ups as we watch her reach her breaking point, stretched between caring for her daughter's mysterious illness, dealing with her unhelpful doctors, navigating her temporary living situation, getting scoled by her absentee husband, dealing with a new-mother client who abandons her baby mid-session, and antagonizing her own therapist.

Byrne is in just about every shot of the film, not exactly carrying the movie, more like frantically pulling it. She's got a great supporting cast around her, mostly playing unsupportive roles. Danielle Macdonald, the Aussie actress from Patti Cake$, Bird Box, and Dumplin', plays the anxcious new mom who disapears. A$AP Rocky (the rapper who gave an solid supporting turn in this same year's Spike Lee film, Highest 2 Lowest) plays James, the superintendent at the motel Linda and her daughter have to stay in while waiting for their landlord to fix the giant hole int heir cielding. Conan O'Brien gives a surprisingly effective non-comedic turn as Linda's repressed therapist. And writer/director Mary Bronstein plays one of Linda's daughters' doctors, who constantly berates Linda for not meeting the goals required her daughter's treatment.

This is the movie NightBitch could have been if it had the guts. It's a terrifying cinematic depiction of the anxieties of motherhood. What David Lynch's dream film Eraserhead captures about male fears about impending parenthood, this sometimes surreal picture nails the sometimes all-too-real daily horrors of parenthood for women. In virtually every scene, Linda experiences some reminder that she's not a good enough mother, therapist, or person. Her daughter is never seen but always just offscreen, causing us to occasionally wonder if she, like the ceiling hole, really exists. But she does. All too much.

The film's relentless nature is balanced by its macabre humor. This is a laugh-out-loud picture for those who can get on Bronstein's wavelength. Byrne, whose career so far has been a series of forgettable comedies and studio franchise pictures, gives one of the year's best performances, a tour de force that I hope will be remembered at Oscar time.