If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025)

Score: 6 / 10
Category: Movie
Platform: Streaming

One-line verdict

A deliberately disorienting character study that demands attention more than it offers enjoyment, elevated mainly by a powerful central performance.

What worked

• Rose Byrne is excellent. She carries the entire film and shows remarkable range.
• Her portrayal moves fluidly between calm professionalism, suppressed anger, exhaustion, sadness, and quiet desperation.
• The movie succeeds as a psychological portrait of a woman under constant pressure.
• The paradox of a therapist who herself needs therapy, in the same place she works, is one of the more interesting ideas in the film.
• Conan O’Brien’s presence adds an unexpected but welcome contrast.

What broke

• The film is intentionally confusing, but not in a rewarding way.
• It constantly feels like you’re watching something you’re meant to understand rather than experience.
• While the structure isn’t as extreme as puzzle films that rearrange timelines, it still creates mental fatigue.
• The heavy reliance on dialogue and emotional tension becomes tiring halfway through.
• It’s unclear for much of the runtime whether certain elements, especially the daughter, are real or imagined, and that ambiguity doesn’t fully pay off even by the end.

What others are saying

• Largely praised for Rose Byrne’s performance.
• Divisive responses to the film’s structure and pacing.
• Some appreciate its emotional honesty, while others find it exhausting and opaque.

The section below discusses plot details.

Why this landed where it did

This movie feels less like entertainment and more like an exercise in empathy. It follows a therapist struggling with her daughter’s condition, pressure from a doctor over weight targets, and emotional distance from a husband who is frequently absent.

At its core, it’s about a woman slowly crumbling under relentless negativity while trying to stay functional. That idea is clear, even if the execution is deliberately murky.

I found the experience boring at times, not because nothing was happening, but because I was constantly trying to decode meaning instead of being pulled along by the story. By the time the film clarifies certain ambiguities, the emotional payoff feels muted.

I’m giving this a 6 mainly because of Rose Byrne. Without her performance, this would’ve landed much lower. The ambition is there, the intent is clear, but the film asks more patience than it gives back.