Discomforting look at a woman on edge

'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You' pushes its harried mother to the limit — and the audience too.

- GLENN WHIPP COLUMNIST

ROSE BYRNE portrays a parent struggling with one crisis after another in Mary Bronstein's new movie.

(LOGAN WHITE A24)

From the moment it begins, Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I'd Kick You” aims to put you inside the head of a mother in crisis, and for the next couple of hours it does so in such an exhausting, claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing manner that, as you take a journey on this cinematic endurance test, you feel many things: grudging admiration, abject terror and, finally, sweet relief when the closing credits roll.

Can a film succeed too wildly in accomplishing what it sets out to do? By the movie’s midway point, when a sinister hamster shows up to add another layer of torment to the life of Linda (Rose Byrne), you might think yes. And guess what? At that point, there’s still another hour to go of extreme closeups, oppressive sound design and surreal images that would keep David Lynch awake at night. If you're a woman and you're on the fence about becoming a mother, you might never have sex again.