After 30 years as an actor, Rose Byrne enjoyed her first Oscar nomination for 2025's If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. Despite the title, she doesn't play a double amputee.

Therapist Linda (Byrne) finds herself stretched to her limits. Her severely ill daughter (Delaney Quinn) requires intensive care and because her husband Charles' (Christian Slater) job keeps him away from home for long stretches, the burden falls on her.

Linda self-medicates but continues to struggle. An unusual relationship with her seemingly unsupportive counselor (Conan O'Brien) and other complications don't make life any easier for her.

That all sounds like a downer, doesn't it? IMDB lists Legs as a "dark comedy", though, and it does come with some black humor at times.

Mostly Legs revolves around Linda’s mental disintegration, though, and that topic doesn’t lend itself to a lot of laughs. Indeed, the story becomes intensely focused on Linda and her issues.

Though I credited the actors behind Linda’s husband and unnamed daughter, they mostly appear as voices. In an obvious choice to concentrate on Linda as the only visible member of the family through the vast majority of the film, the depicts he world through her mind.

While this creates an interesting dynamic, it also means that Legs can feel stuck in place. We don’t get a real plot, as instead we trace Linda’s downward spiral and all the crises she encounters.

Which can seem contrived. Linda goes through so many catastrophes across a short period of time that the story leaves the realm of practical reality too often.

In many ways, Legs reminds me of fellow 2025 flick Marty Supreme, another flick that comes with an ever-escalating series of escapades. Perhaps this doesn’t become coincidental given that Legs writer/director Mary Bronstein’s husband Ron co-wrote that one.

Ron Bronstein and Supreme writer/director Josh Safdie also produced Legs. This doesn’t intend to imply I view Legs as a copycat of the other film or that Ron and Josh acted as Svengalis behind Mary.

Nonetheless, Legs and Supreme can feel like siblings, and Supreme becomes the more satisfying of the two. I feel that way mainly because Supreme’s farcical progression makes more sense given its less serious orientation.

Supreme deals with a narcissist who plays table tennis to get ahead and stops at nothing to succeed. While it comes with serious elements, the basic conceit can lean goofy and it lends itself to comedy.

As a story of a woman in psychological decline, Legs makes less sense as a black comedy and as mentioned, the outrageous series of events that greet Linda can seem tough to swallow as reality. Granted, I won’t claim that Mary Bronstein wants us to interpret Legs as literal reality.

Virtually all of Legs comes from Linda’s POV, and she exists as an unreliable narrator. This means what we see may not accurately reflect her actual experiences.

However, movies remain a largely literal artform and that means audiences tend to take what they get as “real” unless clearly informed otherwise. So much of Legs progresses this way that I can find it difficult to accept so much misery in so little time.

Honestly, the story lacks a lot of substance, as we basically just get a non-stop look at Linda’s stress and misery. Even though Supreme also offered an episodic tale, it worked toward Marty’s goal to compete in a specific tournament, whereas Legs lacks such a possible endpoint.

I guess we could view Linda’s efforts to get her needy daughter off a feeding tube as an overarching plot. Still, this doesn’t form a particularly firm narrative.

And that leaves us with Linda’s Magical Misery Tour most of the time. The film can feel like it exists mainly to showcase Byrne’s talents, and in that regard, it succeeds.

Byrne creates as full-blooded a character as the script allows. She doesn’t play Linda as a super-mom and she doesn’t ask for sympathy/affection, choices that allow Linda to seem different than what this genre would usually deliver.

Byrne helps keep us with Legs but the movie can feel like diminishing returns. The story gets more unhinged as it goes, and this means it turns less interesting.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie came with a solid presentation.

Overall sharpness worked fine. Some wider shots exhibited a bit of softness but the majority of the film appeared well-defined.

Neither jagged edges nor moiré effects impacted the image, and I witnessed no edge haloes. Source flaws also remained absent.

Colors leaned toward fairly chilly blues, with some amber and red along the way. The hues seemed well-rendered given the subdued palette choices.

Blacks appeared dark and tight, while low-light shots brought appealing clarity. No one will view Legs as a visual showcase but the Blu-ray represented the film well.

Did a character drama like Legs need a Dolby Atmos soundtrack? No, but downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the mix worked fine.

Most of the time, the soundscape remained subdued, with an emphasis on the front channels. Music broadened to the side and rear speakers as well, and we got some directional dialogue at times.

A few “action” scenes – like the collapse of a ceiling – brought the soundfield to life, and the mix used an oppressive sense of dread via environmental material. Still, this largely became a chatty track without a ton of involvement.

Audio quality satisfied, with music that seemed full and rich. Dialogue became natural and distinctive.

Effects appeared accurate and dynamic, with nice bass rumble as appropriate. Again, this didn’t turn into a great track but it worked for the story at hand.

As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from writer/director Mary Bronstein and director of photography Christopher Messina. Both sit together for a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, photography and visual design, music, effects, editing and related domains.

From start to finish, this becomes a terrific chat. With Bronstein in the lead, we learn a ton about the film and enjoy ourselves along the way.

Two featurettes follow. Behind the Scenes runs seven minutes, 48 seconds.

Take the title literally, as the reel consists of raw footage from the shoot without interviews. Though brief, we get a good “fly on the wall” feel.

Evolution of a Tracking Shot goes for three minutes, 48 seconds and also gives us glimpses from the set, with an obvious emphasis on one particular sequence. Some commentary would make it more valuable but it still offers a decent reel.

Seven Deleted/Extended Scenes occupy a total of 21 minutes, 31 seconds. The first two provide longer versions of counseling sessions between Linda and her therapist.

These take up more than 11 minutes of the package. Both seem interesting but probably too much for the final cut.

As for the other five, they seem largely insubstantial, though moderately interesting. Nothing that really adds to the film appears.

Note that the running times include text introductions to each of the scenes from Bronstein. She adds context to the clips.

Like apparently all A24 releases, this one comes with six Photo Cards that display shots from the film and other elements. They add a little value to the set.

As a character study, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You works mainly thanks to a strong lead performance from Rose Byrne. However, too much of the rest of the movie suffers from ups and downs for it to succeed as a whole. The Blu-ray comes with good picture and audio as well as a reasonable array of supplements. Byrne does enough to keep us occupied with Legs but the rest of the film doesn’t live up to her work.