I f I had legs, I’d kill you by Mary Bronstein

A film by Mary Bronstein

With: Rose Byrne, Delaney Quinn, Mary Bronstein, A$AP Rocky, Ivy Wolk, Mark Stolzenberg, Conan O’Brien, Manu Narayan, Danielle Macdonald, Eva Kornet

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.

Our rate: –

an A24 film in competition; we might have expected an auteur gesture, an aesthetic singularity, or a stroke of artistic genius, which would sublimate an anguished plot, failing to be probable or in touch with reality. But no, If I had legs, I’d kill you not only has a title devoid of any poetry, it’s just an A24 film, to be received as such, and thus analyzed from the angle of the fright it proposes; it’s worth noting that on this level Rose Byrne succeeds perfectly in conveying to us, aided by the camera fixed on her face on numerous occasions, the fright the situation gives her character. Another good point is the improbable idea of putting the little girl completely off-screen, thus artificially creating a narrative mystery. But does this justify putting this film in competition at the Berlinale, as we’re still a long way from the kind of strong proposal that Zulawski and Polanski, to name but two, could have made in the field of angst films? Generally speaking, the very role of festivals is being questioned: should they accompany the industry, exhibiting it supermarket-style, or on the contrary, assert strong guidelines, or rely on the artistic vision of their selectors?