Robert Kojder chats with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You writer-director Mary Bronstein…
Returning with her first feature-length film since 2008, writer/director Mary Bronstein is back with the cinematic anxiety-attack, mother-of-a-sick-child-and-on-a-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown psychological drama, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. And not only is it completely immersive, leaving one on edge throughout with an unforgettable lead performance from Rose Byrne (often shot in close-ups for maximum effect, even when using two seconds of relief to chew on a destroyed, disgusting slice of pizza), it’s a profoundly personal film in nearly every aspect. Perhaps that shouldn’t be too surprising given how authentic and truthful every scenario, environment, and interaction feels.
Premiering worldwide at Sundance earlier this year, the film also recently played the Chicago International Film Festival, where Mary Bronstein attended the screening for a post-film Q&A. Having seen the movie beforehand, I was fortunate and grateful for the opportunity to talk to her before that screening. As a physically disabled person who does require much caretaking (although not in the same way as the young daughter here), it made for a fascinating discussion about approaching the material and the types of reactions anyone ill or disabled might have watching it. As a mother to a child who was once similarly sick, it’s evident that Mary knows how to navigate tricky storytelling waters and stick to the story from a mother’s perspective. That’s one way of saying so much about this film; going beyond that aspect wouldn’t work without her expertise in areas like psychotherapy.
We also explore how mothers have to seize any moment they can find themselves, preparing the ensemble (which includes an outstanding Conan O’Brien of all people) for their roles, how that attention-grabbing title came to Mary Bronstein, and more. She is very well spoken and takes her time delivering thoughtful, strongly articulated answers. Her wealth of experience demonstrates that no one may be more suited to make this film than her. Enjoy the interview below:
It’s nice to meet you. I thought the movie was terrific.
Oh, great! It’s nice to meet you.
As someone born with a muscular disease who has needed and will always need constant caretaking, I have probably unintentionally driven my own mom crazy at various points in my life.
[Shared laughter]
You’ve made something authentic, not just about mothers, but those on the other side of the equation. So I can’t help but wonder if you thought about how people with illnesses, disabilities, or similar conditions would feel while watching the film, or what they would take away from it?
I did very much for a couple of different reasons. And thank you, I’m glad that you had a good experience watching the film and that it rang true to you. One is that the seed of this idea came from a real-life experience I had with my daughter, where she became very ill and had a machine that, in the movie, of course, becomes like this sort of omnipresent oppressive character. She had that for a year. The illness was longer than that. But I experienced it as a caretaker.
Then, on the other side of it, before I was making a living as an artist, I earned a master’s degree in psychology and worked for about eight years in the New York City public hospital system, providing play therapy and psychoeducation to very sick and profoundly disabled children. I worked for about two years on a pediatric rehabilitation floor. So there were a lot of children who were in wheelchairs who were paralyzed or partially paralyzed, who learned to walk. And I got to know this population very well from the child side of it. Also, some of these children would live in the hospital for six months or more, and sometimes their parents would not come. I would be in that role because I wasn’t a doctor, a nurse, or a physical therapist.
And when I was writing the movie, I was very protective of my daughter, specifically her privacy. I had a conversation with her where I said this is a movie that’s going to be from the perspective of the mother, but it will involve these aspects of what you went through. But it’s not your story. When you want to tell your story —if you ever want to —you can do it. I don’t feel the right to tell your story in any way. We had a very deep conversation about that. So when I was writing the film and making the film, I was thinking about all those experiences I had working with the children in the hospital, and of course, my own experience. And I think it came together in that way.
I’ve had some direct experiences with people with disabilities at different screenings that have also said something similar to what you said, which is like “oh boy, I’m gonna call my mom and apologize, but also I feel seen.” I had one woman who said that she was very sick as a child, and she never thought about what her mom went through. She was going to call her mom for a conversation, and she was crying. Those responses and engagements are so important to me because, as I told my daughter, I never want anyone to feel that I’m telling their story inappropriately since I haven’t lived it. But I have lived the part of being the mother. So I can tell that story.
Great answer, I respect that. Also, a significant aspect of this film is that it escalates anxiety to the point of a nervous breakdown. So did you film the movie in chronological order to reflect that?
I wish I could have! We did not. We shot very much out of order. In fact, I think Linda’s (Rose Byrne) full breaking point, where she reaches her limit and entirely cracks, is when she’s in the car talking with her husband. He’s saying they will get back to normal, while she insists they never will. “I’m never going back to the program. I’m not going back.” We shot that on the first or second day, before Rose had performed through the whole aspect of the film. That’s just a testament to her incredible talent and abilities. We had gotten to know the script so well by that point that she was able to do that. But, oh man, what a gift it would have been to do it in chronological order.
She is outstanding in this movie, but it’s not just when playing up the stress and anxiety of it all. One of my favorite small moments is the one-to-two-second reaction of relief during the close-up shot of her eating pizza early on; it’s such a truthful expression. She knows that’s the only two seconds she will have to herself that day. So, can you talk about shooting that scene in particular, and just how Rose felt eating on camera?
I have her eating a bunch on camera, and it’s all disgusting like that, where she’s shoving stuff in her mouth. Yeah, you get it so perfectly. That is what I was trying to impart… that I think when you’re a mother in any way, but especially one who is also dealing with a sick child with any special need or health need or in a health crisis, but even a regular mother, you steal those moments. You take advantage of them, even if it’s one second or two seconds, even though it’s the daughter going to the bathroom, I’m going to take advantage of that fact and this cheese that I’m shoving in my mouth, if that’s the one second I get today, I’m gonna do it. And that’s what I was trying to reflect.
Regarding the technical aspect, I did make Rose eat a lot of pizza and cheese. What I did with the sound, I upped that, I upped squishy gross pizza cheese chewing sound. And if you notice, I keep the cheese eating for just like a second too long, where you’re like, how long do I need to be watching this for, and that is where a lot of the humor in the movie lies, in those absurdist moments. I think they are very important because, as you said, they show a relief for the character. Then, as the movie goes on, those sorts of absurd moments where you can laugh are a relief for the audience.
Setting parts in the world of psychotherapy, you said you have a master’s degree in psychotherapy, but did you have to teach the ensemble anything about that, or did you have to do anything to catch them up to speed, especially Conan O’Brien on his role?
I had the benefit of working with Rose and Conan, who both have their own history with therapy. They were available to talk about a lot. For Rose, I arranged for her to meet with several child therapists. Not all were child therapists, but many were friends or colleagues of my child’s therapist. I also included some adult psychotherapists. She met with them to discuss specifically what burnout is like for a psychotherapist. We’re meeting Linda at a time when she’s very much burned out, and one could argue that she should not be practicing at this exact moment. To ping pong back to an earlier question, I told Rose a lot of my personal experiences, of course, and shared my journals with her too. But I also had her meet in a similar way with mothers of children with various special needs that I knew from a network of groups I had belonged to. They were very honest and candid with her about that.
With Conan, I did a lot of talking, a lot of reading, and discussed his recommendations. We created fake notes that he might have written after certain sessions with Linda, which took place before the movie, so he could understand what it’s been like treating this woman for this time leading up to it. Those parts of the preparation were some of the most interesting for me because I learned a lot, too. Just the idea that everyone has some experience with therapy in our culture, even if it’s just not going to therapy, is interesting too. Why does somebody choose that? But I’m from New York, and everyone and their mom goes to therapy, sometimes with their mom. What I wanted to create on screen with therapy is something that was true and honest about how it feels, versus some of the tropes that I’ve seen in other films that don’t ring true to me as somebody who’s been in therapy.
Every aspect of this film feels true, so you definitely accomplished that.
That’s the biggest compliment someone could give. Thank you so much!
You’re welcome. I love that you chose a hole in the ceiling as part of the story, because from the very beginning of this movie, it feels like Linda’s under so much pressure that the sky might as well be falling in her world. So a hole collapsing in the ceiling is symbolic of that. Did you see it that way?
I saw it exactly that way. And I was thinking a lot about the feeling that one gets when they’re under so much pressure and so much stress that it feels insurmountable, and it feels like the entire world is plotting against you. It feels like the whole world could collapse inside of you or implode on you. It’s definitely a symbol of both of those things. In one of the phone calls she has with her infuriating husband, he literally says, “Look, the sky’s not falling.” It’s gonna be fine. It’s like, no, literally the ceiling collapsed on me. It is falling. I think that even if a person hasn’t been in a particular situation, or even if someone’s not a mother, or even if somebody doesn’t have experience with caretaking, who hasn’t had that feeling? That’s what I was trying to tap into as well, to sort of take something very specific and abstracted out. I’ve gotten a lot of engagement and direct dialogue with people who aren’t any of those things and know exactly how that feels.
I want to know how you came up with the title of the film, because I love it. I think it’s attention-grabbing and very visceral, like everything else about the movie.
Thank you! This is sort of like unbelievable, but when I was 18 years old when I was in college. I’ve always been a writer, and that sentence came to me fully formed, and I didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but I wrote it down because I was like, that’s something. It goes that idiom of “oh, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” meaning you have nothing. You got nothing. You’ve got no support system. Or as my mom would have said, which is more crude, but she would have said, “you don’t have a pot to pee in, you got nothing.” So as I was writing this script, I didn’t have a title, but very early in, I remembered that phrase I had thought of so many years ago. And I thought, “Oh my God, that’s what that is. That’s what that is. That’s the title of this movie!”
I don’t want to get all metaphysical and weird, but I do believe that sometimes in art, you can think of a part of an idea, and it’s not until many years later that it comes together as a whole. And I thought, how perfect a title, because forget about not having one leg to stand on. She’s got neither, she’s got nothing. She’s got no support system, she’s got no resources, even though supposedly she’s surrounded by them; nobody’s helping her. And if she did have the strength, she would use it for violence or revenge or rage. She’s got a rage in her. I’m so glad that you felt like it worked for you. A lot of people are confused by it, but others are like, “I get it.”
I see that title, and I think I want to see that movie right away. I don’t care what it’s about.
Thank you.
Many thanks to Mary Bronstein for taking the time for this interview.
SEE ALSO: Read our ★ ★ ★ ★ review of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You here
Robert Kojder
