Martin Tsai January 25, 2025
No, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is not an amputee’s revenge fantasy. The Sundance Film Festival world premiere from Mary Bronstein (Yeast) is an immersive story of a woman truly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. If you scrutinize the stylistic choices, though, it’s as if Bronstein has been questioning Linda’s sanity all along. The sound design by Ruy Garcia amps up the nondiegetic ambient sounds, auditorily creating the atmosphere of a horror film. Linda also experiences visions when gazing through the hole in her ceiling. There are protracted montages of delirious hallucinations with layered screams and tantrums from Quinn. Perhaps Linda is crazy. Or perhaps everybody is on the mental illness spectrum.