If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, 2025.

Written and Directed by Mary Bronstein.
Starring Rose Byrne, Delaney Quinn, Mary Bronstein, A$AP Rocky, Ivy Wolk, Mark Stolzenberg, Conan O’Brien, Manu Narayan, Danielle Macdonald, Eva Kornet, Ella Beatty, Helen Hong, Daniel Zolghadri, Josh Pais, Ronald Bronstein, Laurence Blum, Lark White, Amy Judd Lieberman, Char Sidney. Jodi Michelle Pynn, and Christian Slater.

SYNOPSIS:

With her life crashing down around her, Linda attempts to navigate her child’s mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.

For Rose Byrne’s high-strung psychotherapist Linda, the sky is falling metaphorically and in a literal sense. She not only has a young daughter with an unspecified eating condition that requires a feeding tube in her stomach, creating a hole, until putting on a little more weight herself through solid foods, in which case the tube would be removed, with the hole instantly closing.  In what is a more jolting jump scare than most modern horror movies offer, her ceiling has also caved in, leaving a gaping hole in her apartment.

And that’s not even the half of Linda’s problems in writer/director Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, where the rotten luck continues over multiple months yet is tightly edited together by Lucian Johnston in such a manner where time feels as if it doesn’t exist, with the concept of life presented as a series of cliff climbs where the only thing that’s there after reaching the top is yet another one to climb.

The closest thing to a free moment for Linda comes early on when she tries to enjoy a slice of cheese off of a massacred pizza (from being dropped on the sidewalk after picking it up, which also gives you another look at how everything that could go wrong is going wrong here), with a close-up of her face mid-chew and tiny pleasure for all of two seconds before her daughter (credited as Child and impressively played by Delayney Quinn) is calling for something from another room.

One other important detail regarding the presentation of Linda’s daughter is that it’s more of a disembodied voice. Yes, there are moments where a limb or article of clothing is caught in the background or in bed as Linda puts her to sleep while also changing the feeding tube liquids, but the idea here seems to be portraying parenting as hearing a voice that never stops, because it’s a job with no breaks. Then there is the creeping thought from Linda that maybe she was never meant to be a mom. It’s also a clever way around depicting a highly ill, if otherwise generally in good spirits, child in an emotionally manipulative gaze. It’s also sticking with Linda’s perspective, not only for the towering Rose Byrne performance, which runs the gamut of facial expressions, but also to maintain the feeling that a crushing weight is on her shoulders as a woman and a mother.

Keep in mind, Linda has to work with the problems of several other patients as a psychotherapist while barely holding it together herself. The film also offers a uniquely nuanced look at therapy, with at least one of Linda’s patients coming across as excitable, seemingly living a good life, yet wasting everyone’s time. Then there is Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), a mother obsessed with protecting her daughter to the point of sheer terror at the thought of leaving her child with a babysitter, having watched far too much true crime and fearing that whoever she leaves her baby with will be a murderer.

Despite Linda trying to work Caroline through some of these exaggerated thoughts into more rational thinking, there is also a fascinating juxtaposition, perhaps even a mirror, in that Linda finds herself looking at the same true crime story later, as worrying over the most unlikely scenarios is also part of being a mother.

With Linda’s demeaning husband away on a work trip (catching sports games while rudely and wrongly accusing her of having a life of rest, listening to “whiny” patients in between caring for their daughter), she and her child are staying at a nearby motel. During these nighttime scenes, it becomes evident that Linda isn’t exactly Mom of the Year, and that’s okay, because the point of this anxiety-ridden movie is the messiness and never-ending stress of parenting itself. Nevertheless, Linda has a bit of a drinking problem, which threatens to spiral into a drug problem as she makes the acquaintance of nearby cashier James (A$AP Rocky), striking a friendship.

Perhaps the real kicker in all of this is that psychoanalyst Linda has her own psychoanalyst in an unnamed coworker played by Conan O’Brien of all people, disappearing into a role that’s primarily stripped of comedy (although it would be fair to ascribe much of what happens here is nervous, nerve-racking comedy that’s not funny because of what’s happening, but more due to the amount of bad luck on display). It’s a dynamic that complicates the already complicated relationship between patients and therapists, further complicating it now with a woman refusing to take the advice she herself gives to most of her patients.

That’s possibly because what If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is getting at is that perhaps therapy isn’t always helpful if one doesn’t want to address what’s wrong with themselves first. Maybe Conan O’Brien’s psychotherapist does have valid answers, but Linda wouldn’t be able to put them to use anyway, since, in her mind, she is already a failure, and everything, including things that are impossible to be her fault, such as her daughter’s illness, is her fault. Having an unsupportive husband lacking empathy doesn’t help matters, either. Maybe most of all, Linda needs to find some way to help herself before she can ever help her daughter. Underneath all the manic energy and stress is a film that, even if every big swing doesn’t work, leaves so much to contemplate and grapple with; it’s like a hole that will never close.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

An immigrant drama by Rudi Goblen about two brothers born in Nicaragua, “littleboy/littleman,” now receiving its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, is an American story at its core.

Lest we forget our past, America is the great democratic experiment precisely because it’s a land of immigrants. Out of many, one — as our national motto, E pluribus unum, has it. How have we lost sight of this basic tenet of high school social studies?

Our tendency to ghettoize drama — along racial or immigrant lines — reflects the failure to understand our collective story.

Goblen, who (like a.k. payne, author of “Furlough’s Paradise”) was a playwriting student of Geffen Playhouse artistic director Tarell Alvin McCraney at Yale, has created not a conventionally worked out two-hander, but an intuitively structured performance piece. Infused by live music and inflected with hip-hop style poetry, “littleboy/littleman” crashes through the fourth wall to make direct contact with theatergoers, who are seated on three sides of the playing area and always just a high-five away.

Marlon Alexander Vargas, the dynamic, sweet-faced performer who plays Fito Palomino, the more creative and mercurial of the two brothers, is on stage interacting with the audience before the play begins. As the musicians — music director Dee Simone on drums and Tonya Sweets on bass — warm up the crowd from their platform at the back of the playing area, Vargas, ever-in-motion, greets theatergoers and counts down to the start of the show.

Rules are spelled out at the top that make clear that this isn’t one of those docile theatergoing experiences, in which the audience is expected to keep mum as the actors do all the work. Spectators are encouraged to make some noise — to show love when they want to show love and to show it even when they don’t.

These friendly instructions are impishly delivered by Vargas, whose performance outside the play has an effect on our experience of his character inside the play. The fate of Fito is the emotional crux of the drama, and what happens to him matters all the more to us because of our theatrical connection to Vargas, our de facto host and impromptu buddy.

Goblen sets up a drama of fraternal contrasts. Bastian Monteyero (Alex Hernandez), the older and more straitlaced of the two brothers, has a tough, no-nonsense demeanor that’s all about discipline and conformity. He’s a bit of a recluse, but he plays by the rules and demands the same from Fito.

A street performer, Fito dreams of opening a vegan restaurant that will offer his community access to affordable, healthful meals. This idea seems far-fetched to Bastian, and he tells Fito that if he wants to continue living with him, he’s going to have to get a real job.

Bastian hooks Fito up with a friend who’s employed at a cleaning service. But scrubbing public toilets isn’t Fito’s idea of an alternative course. Bastian wants his brother off the streets. There are dangers afoot in Sweetwater, Fla., far worse than unpleasant paid work.

A law officer in town, a sadist who demands complete subservience, has it in for Fito, who describes this menacing figure as “a gangster with a badge.” He also calls him “brown on the outside, white on the inside,” and bemoans to his brother the Latino infighting (“the worst thing they ever did was give us all flags”) that only divides people who have political reason to be in solidarity.

Bastian, who affects a white-sounding Midwestern voice when he hustles donations in his telemarketing job, can’t help taking the latter comment personally. He’s made no secret that he wants to change his name so his resume won’t be ignored when he applies for management jobs.

The two brothers have different fathers, and Fito doesn’t have the option of passing. In any case, he’s more embracing of his identity as a person of color than Bastian. What both of them have in common is that they survived both their harrowing childhoods in Nicaragua and their unrelentingly challenging journeys in America, having been raised by a single mother, whose death still haunts them.

Bastian and Fito love each other, but don’t always like each other. Hernandez’s Bastian is a formidable presence, angry, strict and domineering — the qualities he’s needed to navigate a bureaucratic system that has little concern for the feelings of immigrant outsiders. Vargas’ Fito, by contrast, has his head in the clouds and his heart on his sleeve. Goblen never loses sight of their affection even as their conflict grows louder and more bruising.

“littleboy/littleman” is tricky in its theatrical rhythms. It’s like a piece of music that keeps switching harmonic structures, not wanting to get stuck in the same groove. Goblen’s manner of writing is closer to free jazz or freestyle hip-hop than traditional drama.

Director Nancy Medina’s staging, circumnavigating a theatrical circle, lifts the audience out of its proscenium passivity into something almost immersive and definitely interactive. Tanya Orellana’s scenic design and Scott Bolman’s moody lighting create a performance space that is well suited to a work composed as a series of riffs. The influence of McCraney’s “The Brothers Size” is palpable not only in the thematic architecture of the play, but also in how the piece moves on stage.

The staccato nature of the writing is helped enormously by the entrancing acting of both Vargas, who breezes through different theatrical realms as though he had wings, and Hernandez, who locks realistically into character. It’s a credit to the play and to the performers that, by the end of “littleboy/littleman,” the differences between the two brothers seem less important than what they have in common.

Not all the dramatic elements are smoothly integrated, but the production ultimately finds a coherence, not so much in the music (composed by Goblen himself), but in the emotional truth of the brothers’ pressure-cooker lives. Vulnerability unites not only Bastian and Fito, but all of us witnessing their story who hope against hope that compassion will somehow win the day.

“The Smashing Machine”

(Sports/Drama: 2 hours, 03 minutes)

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt and Ryan Bader

Director: Benny Safdie

Rated: R (Strong language, violence and drug use)

Movie Review:

“The Smashing Machine” features Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. The two previously worked together in “Jungle Cruise” (2021). Despite their performances show them giving their best, the narrative in which they exist is too repetitive.

A documentary titled “The Smashing Machine” (John Hyams) debuted in 2002. It detailed mixed-martial arts and UFC champion Mark Kerr and his incredible abundance of wins in the ring. Now, this movie focuses on Kerr’s life from 1997–2000, just after his successive winning streak comes to an end.

Kerr (Johnson) is accustomed to swift victories, but he becomes depressed after losing a match. His life becomes a downward spiral, leading to drug abuse. His only refuge is the love he has for Dawn Staples (Blunt) and his devoted friendship with fellow fighter Mark Coleman (former mixed martial artist, now commentator Ryan Bader).

At its best, “The Smashing Machine” shows that Mark Kerr was fighting in the ring and at home. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is playing a fighter, something not dissimilar from his WWE days as a pro wrestler. So the athleticism and nature of this role is something he’s familiar with, yet he still provides a relatively good performance. Emily Blunt plays his lover. She is talented and always on point, but her role appears slim here in many ways.

“The Smashing Machine” appears to be a product of the 1990s from a cinematography perspective. From there, it becomes something more modern for a biographical movie. It hits the highs and lows of person’s life in a tabloid form, meaning moments feel redundant at several points. The characters do the same actions too much. We see Mark Kerr fighting in the ring — quick bouts. Then, moviegoers see his arguments with his lover. The two of them are in a dysfunctional relationship. These two parts of the movie repeat far too often.

“The Smashing Machine” appears to be a product of the 1990s from a cinematography perspective. From there, it becomes something more modern for a biographical movie for nearly three-fourths of the runtime. It becomes a man’s quest to achieve despite obstacles, a triumphant sports underdog overcoming, but the latter 30 minutes becomes something more original.

Director-writer Benny Safdie (Adam Sandler movie “Uncut Gems,” 2019) pivots away from a typical biopic ending. He gives audiences a comeback story before taking it away and providing something more inquisitive to consider, while observing the real-life Mark Kerr living an everyman’s life.

Grade: B- (This smashes expectations.)

“Good Boy”

(Horror/Thriller: 1 hour, 13 minutes)

Starring: Indy, Shane Jensen and Arielle Friedman

Director: Ben Leonberg

Rated: PG-13 (Terror, bloody images and strong language.)

Movie Review:

“Good Boy” is a horror movie, where the leading character is a dog named Indy, a pet of director Ben Leonberg, who co-wrote this intriguing horror with Alex Cannon. This entire movie is told from Indy’s perspective. It is very good filmmaking, a throwback to classic horror with an original touch, its perspective from a canine’s viewpoint.

Indy moves with his owner Todd (Jensen) to the family’s rural home after the patriarch of the family dies. The place is rundown, and Todd in the process of renovating the abode. However, Todd is also sick, and when darkness comes at night, Indy bravely protects his master from a sinister presence.

Yes, a canine is the leading character and is more moving than many human counterparts in other horror-themed flicks. This is not new. “Strays” (2023) and “Dog” (2022) are also recent movies where canines are a central character. However, what is new is the fact that a dog takes the primary lead and all humans are secondary performers. Even more, “Good Boy” is a horror movie that is better than most in the genre.

Indy actually belongs to the director, Ben Leonberg in his directorial debut for a feature film. After “Good Boy” concludes, Leonberg details in a behind-the-scenes segment that he and his team filmed more than 400 days over three years. That time was worth it, and this movie is worth it for audiences. Indy is adorable and is the focus of this narrative. Humans are always obscured behind hunting masks, silhouetted, blurred, hidden in shadows, cropped from neck up or are barely reflected in mirrors or other objects. This creates some vagueness at moments, but audiences should keep in mind that events are from Indy’s perspective.

The result is something that has been missing from movies, especially horror movies for a long time. Leonberg and team share the art of taking one’s time to make a film an enjoyable art.

Grade: B+ (Good Movie.)

“Bone Lake”

(Thriller: 1 hour, 35 minutes)

Starring: Alex Roe, Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi and Andra Nechita

Director: Mercedes Bryce Morgan

Rated: R (Strong bloody violence, grisly images, sexual content, graphic nudity, strong language and drug use.)

Movie Review:

“Bone Lake” has an enticing start at least after the first five minutes. This is when William (Roe) and Cinnamon (Nechita), ‘Cin’ for short, arrive. They are a young, beautiful couple with model waistlines in abdominal muscles. They arrive at this very nice mansion, only to find Sage (Hasson) and Diego (Pigossi) already there, preparing for a few very romantic days.

The two couples decide to remain in the very spacious mansion at the same time. The mishap is an apparent mix-up by the owners who rent out the place for vacationers. Soon, lies, sex and videotape emerge and Sage and Diego find their relationship is tethering. Even more, the couples began to have their own little riffs with each other.

“Bone Lake” is a horror movie on the surface. It is advertised that way in all its trailers. This is a thriller with surprises.

That fact does not take away the entertainment value of “Bone Lake.” It is a seductive mix between a sensational soap opera episode and what seems like a romantic reality show for a moment. The problem is the writers were boneheads. They do not make the apex’s twist a more superior moment. Instead, the moment feels shallow, so audiences are left with a very violent slasher horror — albeit gratifying ­— for the last few scenes.

Grade: B- (Lake is nice for sailing, but it has some calcium buildup.)