Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the decadent period piece “Hedda,” the kid-friendly monster flick “Stitch Head” and the comedy-drama “Novelle Vague.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CTV NewsChannel to have a look at new movies coming to theatres including the rock biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” the Broadway drama “Blue Moon” and the psychological drama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the rock biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” the Broadway drama “Blue Moon” and the psychological drama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In the surreal psychological drama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” an overwhelmed mother and therapist played by Rose Byrne grapples with her child’s mysterious illness, an absent husband and the giant hole in the ceiling of her apartment.
CAST: Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater, ASAP Rocky. Directed by Mary Bronstein.
REVIEW: Rose Byrne has a singular ability to play people teetering on the edge. Sylvia, the tightly wound character she plays on the Apple TV+ series “Platonic” plays those anxieties and familial crisis for laughs. The tone of her work in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” however, is pitched several shades darker than her TV work.
Shot in tight, claustrophobic close-ups, we meet Linda (Byrne), a therapist whose life is crumbling around her. Her young daughter (Delaney Quinn) has a mysterious illness and needs to be fed through a tube. Her Navy officer husband (Christian Slater) is on deployment and, to cap it all off, a pipe in their apartment’s blew a giant hole in their ceiling, dumping hundreds of gallons of water into their living space. Battling anxiety and depression Linda and daughter are forced into a cut rate motel as their landlord takes forever to fix the damage.
Self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, Linda is a coiled spring, tense and unpredictable and Byrne crawls into her head, delivering a raw nerve of a performance that impresses and devastates.
Director Mary Bronstein opts to shoot Byrne in extreme close-up for much of the runtime, examining the performance in detail. Without a false note, Byrne plays it straight, internalizing the societal pressures, shame and guilt that drives her to extremes. Linda is vulnerable and erratic, but the performance is all behind Bryne’s eyes. Without resorting to histrionics or big gestures, she illustrates Linda’s inner torment in subtle but distressing ways.
Rapper-turned-actor ASAP Rocky follows up his very strong work opposite Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” with another natural, interesting performance as James, the motel superintendent who gets drawn into Linda’s web.
A study of a relentless panic attack, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” is a vital, intimate, but difficult, watch.
