thoughts about If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

*dr. coomer voice* hole.

I watched If I Had Legs I'd Kick You last night and I liked it! I think it executes what it was trying to do almost perfectly. Rose Byrne should get that Oscar. It was beautifully made and horrible to watch and that's why it's good. I think my main problem with it is that the daughter sucked too much.

Hear me out. That little girl was not the problem. The problem was the lack of support Linda had from everyone around her, the pressures put on mothers, the spiral of guilt and shame, etc. There's a very powerful scene where Linda confesses she had gotten pregnant early in her and her husband's relationship and gotten an abortion. Now, with all the stress caused by her daughter's medical issues, she wonders if she "got rid of the wrong one." Obviously, that's an upsetting thing to think and as the audience we are supposed to think that's shocking and sad. Problem is, I think it was too easy for people to come away from this movie thinking "Y'know, maybe she was right." Because oh my god, this movie took every opportunity it could to remind you that this little girl was annoying and frustrating. Stuff like the plot line with her wanting a hamster and immediately changing her mind when she realized the hamster was biting her and wasn't going to love her right away. Metaphor's clear, right? The daughter is the rodent for Linda. It's not that Linda has realized she doesn't want a child. She said it herself. Linda doesn't wonder if she should've gotten a second abortion. She wonders if the first child would've been easier to raise, easier to love. She thinks she wasn't meant to be a mother, but that's not because she doesn't love her daughter. It's because being a mother is hard, and having to do so much of it all on her own, with challenges an average mother doesn't even have to deal with.

I think my issue is that the movie didn't make it clear enough that she does, in fact, love her daughter. There were maybe two scenes, before the end of the movie, that showed camaraderie between the two of them. People came out of the movie thinking the daughter was hard to love because the daughter had bad vibes and was a little monster and not because Linda has people all around her telling her what she needs to do to love her daughter correctly but never how to do it, never giving her a hand. The doctor tells her, you need to get your daughter to a certain weight in a week, but not how. She doesn't give Linda advice on how to get her daughter to eat, how to explain to her daughter why this is important. Just do it. Just do better. Figure it out. That little girl was not the problem but I think the movie made it a bit too easy for people to leave the theater thinking she was. It's like they missed that last scene. where we finally see the daughter's face. That's the bit that finally made me cry. Rose Byrne and Delaney Quinn look at each other with such tenderness. Linda tells her daughter that she'll be better, but the heartbreaking thing is that after all this, she still doesn't know how. But maybe now, seeing her daughter's face, seeing a person, for the first time in the movie, she has realized she's not in it alone. In that last moment, the daughter is the only person who has helped her with anything. (Well, besides A$AP Rocky I guess.) Maybe, going forward, they can be a team.

I just don't like that, when the movie ends on the daughter's smiling face giving Linda actual, genuine hope for the first time, people still came out of the movie hating that girl. And I don't think the movie wants us to hate her, I think Mary Bronstein would read what I've said here and agree with me. It's kind of like Fight Club I guess. Is it the movie's fault that despite every point it's trying to make, people still think Tyler Durden is awesome and aspirational? Nah. But also maybe? It's complicated. I don't know. Too many people see children as whiny, squawking little objects. The movie knows that's not how it should be but a whole lot of people were not convinced. Frustrating.