If I Had Legs I'd Kick You doesn't possess enough humor to balance its dark soul, and its surrealistic thematic touches are too self-serious to ask its audience to sit through a two hour runtime. The ending is terrible, especially
Slater showing up in a way that basically indicates he was a fine guy in reality, which kinda upends the validity of Byrne’s whole perspective - something that might be necessary to a point but also disrespects her character to a large extent. She's clearly unhinged but her position as a mother 'taking it all on' shouldn't be challenged in this kind of narrative, for if so, the film is left as a pointless technical exercise without an additional message. Also, cool, she can finally see her daughter and get outside of her self. How profound! Bleh
Now for the good stuff! Because ultimately I think the film overcomes its poor qualities with virtues, if just barely. Byrne is quite good and the technical aspects can be impressive when they're not overcooked. But more than anything else, I thought the depiction of therapy was well documented, and occasionally fascinating. Byrne accurately portrays a burnt-out therapist coping with a realistic variety of clients, and her responses are spot-on. Yet it's Conan’s style that floored me. Most people are probably going to leave this film thinking he's a terrible therapist, and that's a fair assessment to come to as an outsider to the field...
but his approach is really interesting and I thought he actually came off as a carefully observant clinician, especially in his final scene with Byrne. He's more assertive and plays the power differential in a way that I couldn't fathom doing, but I've worked with therapists who have this 'thing' he does, and it's so
right in a sense that is just appropriately ambiguous enough. He calls things out aggressively but subtly, doesn't provide answers, makes his clients do the hard work, and, significantly, stops things when they've gone too far - in a manner that needs to be seen to be believed. He's not going to get nominated for this, but he should. One of the most ambitiously toned-down characters to write dialogue for too, which can't be easy. So many elisions hiding his perceptiveness and genuine caring core from the naked eye. But Bronstein nailed it.