November 5, 2025 • 5 mins
Our film critic Ben O’Shea dropped by to chat about A24’s latest mind-bender, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Starring Aussie favourite Rose Byrne, it’s a psychological drama featuring a therapist, a feeding tube, and a hole in the ceiling. Don’t overthink it, it’s A24, after all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Ben out of shame. Good morning, Ben,
good morning, good morning. Before I rate the flick, I
just want to rate the drum sting that rust did
there to that Brian Adams song. That was perfect. The
air drumming you rarely see done that well. Far stars,
That's how I stretch. Let's talk it now. We'll see
if this next movie gets a score that high. So
(00:22):
if I had legs, i'd kick you. Starring the great
Rose Burn, the Australian actress. She's you know, sort of
a comedy great. She is so really funny, She's hilarious,
Her timing is great. She can do so much with
just the sort of a facial expression and a tone
of voice. So look this. Firstly, I'll say the film
is The film is good. Don't be wrong, don't get
(00:43):
me wrong. The film is good. It is one of
the most unpleasant things I've ever seen. I will never
watch this movie ever again. I struggle to recommend it's good.
I struggle to recommend it as a viewing experience. It
is excruciating of you know, it's artistic narrative, We're going
to go there. It's it is actually really well made.
(01:06):
So it's from the production house A twenty four, So
for a lot of people you hear A twenty four,
you get an idea in your head what that's going
to be. It's like it's it's kind of like a
bit quirky independent art house film. But they have also
had some huge hits, like Everything Everywhere, All at Once
won the Oscar Best Picture. So yeah, so they've had
some big success in recent years. And so this film,
(01:28):
you might look at the trailer and go, what genre
is this? Like, what even am I watching? Because it
does blend a lot of genres. There is definitely comedy,
there's no doubt about that. You've got Conan O'Brien, as
you mentioned, and Rose Byrne, who is who is a
great at comedy. There's also let me just explain what
it's about. So Rose Byrne plays a mom. Her husband
(01:49):
played by Christian Slater, has gone away for eight weeks.
You don't see him at all until the last scene.
Don't get excited about Christian Slater him over the Phone's
so she's stuck at home looking after her daughter who
has some sort of serious medical condition that we don't
fully understand what it is. All we know is she's
not eating, so she has to be fed via a
(02:10):
tube into her stomach and a feeding machine that she's
hooked up to every night. And so as soon as
you hear that plus a twenty four, you know there's
going to be some body horror involving that tube at
some point. So I'm just warning you prepare yourself. That
scene is really quite hectic. But and so the point
of it, though, is to really, I guess, explore that
(02:32):
motherhood is just this thing that never goes away. It
can be very difficult, can be very rewarding, and if
you're doing it by yourself, it can be you know,
a real torture, basically, I think is what we come
away from this film thinking. Because this feeding machine, right, so,
it just makes a noise, a very distinctive noise. It's
sort of a machine that goes be Oh okay, that's
(02:56):
a laughing in and of itself as a character. Now
imagine that in the background for an hour and a half.
Oh and so not only do you have that sort
of ramping up this anxiety that you feel, and when
the feeding machine stops, it goes so it's like you're
waiting the whole movie for this thing to go. And
on top of that, the director Mary Bronstein has decided
(03:19):
to use extreme close ups of Roseburn's face for ninety
percent of the movie, so you don't see the daughter
at all until the last scene, the very last scene.
So when rose Burn is looking after her daughter, talking
to her daughter doing the feeding machine stuff, you just
have her whole face on the screen. There is nothing
else on the screen. It's appealing to her whole face,
(03:42):
and so and so. Then every now and then when
there's a wide shot with some other characters, it's like,
oh my gosh, thank you forgiving me, thank you for
showing me that there's something else in the world other
than rose Burn's face. Although you know she's fantastic, but
it does really showcase her amazing acting ability. She won
the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival for
this movie because it's incredible. Her best performance of her career,
(04:05):
no doubt about it. She's still funny, but also is
showing this like anguish and stress and anxiety. It's full on. Also,
there's there's a cameo from Asab Rocky the rapper, who's surprising,
it's just a cameo He's in it a bit, but
not very much because it's really a Roseberd the Roseburn think.
Conan O'Brien is only in it a small amount as well.
He plays Roseburn's therapist, and it just kind of shows
(04:29):
how ill equipped she is to deal with all of
the problems in her life, even though she herself is
also a therapist and does a pretty terrible job with
her clients and self medicates with you know, drugs and alcohol,
and she's kind of And then on top of all
of that, the roof in her house caves in from
some sort of water leak, and it leaves this hole
in the ceiling, which then brings in a supernatural element
(04:50):
because when she looks up into the hole, she sees
these strange lights. It's an a twenty four movie. Don't
think about it, no question. So we played off. I
can tell you a raupeted though least you're well, I
am intrigued oddly appealing to me about it. I'll probably
not to come. I will not see another movie like this.
This is a this is a once only movie. People
on how many get the machine that goes bings? Are
(05:13):
you giving it? I'm going to give it three and
a half, three and three and a half and for
an artistic just yeah, artistic move, but just be aware
it's you might hate. It's a tough watch. It sounds disturbing,
Yeah it is. Will you want to teases during it?
I got a bag of eminem I had two. I'll
be taking it. I'll be taking the straw out of
(05:33):
my cloake. I know that you need the feeding machine
to get the eminem prisbees into me. Hopefully you see
something more pleasant next week to
Great per flick with Ben out of shame. Good morning, Ben,
good morning, good morning. Before I rate the flick, I
just want to rate the drum sting that rust did
there to that Brian Adams song. That was perfect. The
air drumming you rarely see done that well. Far stars,
That's how I stretch. Let's talk it now. We'll see
if this next movie gets a score that high. So
(00:22):
if I had legs, i'd kick you. Starring the great
Rose Burn, the Australian actress. She's you know, sort of
a comedy great. She is so really funny, She's hilarious,
Her timing is great. She can do so much with
just the sort of a facial expression and a tone
of voice. So look this. Firstly, I'll say the film
is The film is good. Don't be wrong, don't get
(00:43):
me wrong. The film is good. It is one of
the most unpleasant things I've ever seen. I will never
watch this movie ever again. I struggle to recommend it's good.
I struggle to recommend it as a viewing experience. It
is excruciating of you know, it's artistic narrative, We're going
to go there. It's it is actually really well made.
(01:06):
So it's from the production house A twenty four, So
for a lot of people you hear A twenty four,
you get an idea in your head what that's going
to be. It's like it's it's kind of like a
bit quirky independent art house film. But they have also
had some huge hits, like Everything Everywhere, All at Once
won the Oscar Best Picture. So yeah, so they've had
some big success in recent years. And so this film,
(01:28):
you might look at the trailer and go, what genre
is this? Like, what even am I watching? Because it
does blend a lot of genres. There is definitely comedy,
there's no doubt about that. You've got Conan O'Brien, as
you mentioned, and Rose Byrne, who is who is a
great at comedy. There's also let me just explain what
it's about. So Rose Byrne plays a mom. Her husband
(01:49):
played by Christian Slater, has gone away for eight weeks.
You don't see him at all until the last scene.
Don't get excited about Christian Slater him over the Phone's
so she's stuck at home looking after her daughter who
has some sort of serious medical condition that we don't
fully understand what it is. All we know is she's
not eating, so she has to be fed via a
(02:10):
tube into her stomach and a feeding machine that she's
hooked up to every night. And so as soon as
you hear that plus a twenty four, you know there's
going to be some body horror involving that tube at
some point. So I'm just warning you prepare yourself. That
scene is really quite hectic. But and so the point
of it, though, is to really, I guess, explore that
(02:32):
motherhood is just this thing that never goes away. It
can be very difficult, can be very rewarding, and if
you're doing it by yourself, it can be you know,
a real torture, basically, I think is what we come
away from this film thinking. Because this feeding machine, right, so,
it just makes a noise, a very distinctive noise. It's
sort of a machine that goes be Oh okay, that's
(02:56):
a laughing in and of itself as a character. Now
imagine that in the background for an hour and a half.
Oh and so not only do you have that sort
of ramping up this anxiety that you feel, and when
the feeding machine stops, it goes so it's like you're
waiting the whole movie for this thing to go. And
on top of that, the director Mary Bronstein has decided
(03:19):
to use extreme close ups of Roseburn's face for ninety
percent of the movie, so you don't see the daughter
at all until the last scene, the very last scene.
So when rose Burn is looking after her daughter, talking
to her daughter doing the feeding machine stuff, you just
have her whole face on the screen. There is nothing
else on the screen. It's appealing to her whole face,
(03:42):
and so and so. Then every now and then when
there's a wide shot with some other characters, it's like,
oh my gosh, thank you forgiving me, thank you for
showing me that there's something else in the world other
than rose Burn's face. Although you know she's fantastic, but
it does really showcase her amazing acting ability. She won
the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival for
this movie because it's incredible. Her best performance of her career,
(04:05):
no doubt about it. She's still funny, but also is
showing this like anguish and stress and anxiety. It's full on. Also,
there's there's a cameo from Asab Rocky the rapper, who's surprising,
it's just a cameo He's in it a bit, but
not very much because it's really a Roseberd the Roseburn think.
Conan O'Brien is only in it a small amount as well.
He plays Roseburn's therapist, and it just kind of shows
(04:29):
how ill equipped she is to deal with all of
the problems in her life, even though she herself is
also a therapist and does a pretty terrible job with
her clients and self medicates with you know, drugs and alcohol,
and she's kind of And then on top of all
of that, the roof in her house caves in from
some sort of water leak, and it leaves this hole
in the ceiling, which then brings in a supernatural element
(04:50):
because when she looks up into the hole, she sees
these strange lights. It's an a twenty four movie. Don't
think about it, no question. So we played off. I
can tell you a raupeted though least you're well, I
am intrigued oddly appealing to me about it. I'll probably
not to come. I will not see another movie like this.
This is a this is a once only movie. People
on how many get the machine that goes bings? Are
(05:13):
you giving it? I'm going to give it three and
a half, three and three and a half and for
an artistic just yeah, artistic move, but just be aware
it's you might hate. It's a tough watch. It sounds disturbing,
Yeah it is. Will you want to teases during it?
I got a bag of eminem I had two. I'll
be taking it. I'll be taking the straw out of
(05:33):
my cloake. I know that you need the feeding machine
to get the eminem prisbees into me. Hopefully you see
something more pleasant next week to
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