If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025, R)

Like Weapons, this is a film that got a sole Oscar nomination for its acting (which, for my money, was well deserved!) It’s a very engrossing character piece about a mother at the end of her rope.

Linda has far too much on her plate. Her husband, a ship captain, is away working for weeks at a time, leaving Linda to look after the complex medical needs of their daughter. When a serious leak from the apartment above them puts a massive hole in their ceiling, Linda and her daughter have to go to an extended stay motel. As she argues with contractors, juggles patients at her therapy practice, and listens to the beep of her daughter’s feeding machine at night, she feels like she’s losing her grip.

When it comes to getting inside Linda’s head and feeling her experiences, the film does a really effective job. There is a crushing weight of responsibilities and demands dragging her down. She’s dealing with everything on her own, she’s made to feel like all of it is her fault, and her problems are as much existential as they are physical/logistical. Staring up at the hole, it seems to threaten to swallow everything. Linda knows that she has an identity beyond solely being a mother, but it feels like any her outside of her daughter is going to disappear if she stops clinging onto it. But if she insists on making space for herself, does that mean she’s a selfish, horrible mother?

Her daughter’s condition is never named, but it seems to be ARFID or something similar: she has a feeding tube because she’s severely underweight, she’s incredibly particular about what foods she’ll even consider eating, and she spends all day attending some sort of treatment program. Linda wants to have the tube removed because she thinks it’s become a crutch, while her daughter’s doctor warns that they’ll need to “reassess her level of care” if she doesn’t make her weight goal in the next week. There are some nice details here, like the fact the treatment-center-run “parents’ group” is made up entirely of moms.

Rose Byrne is up for Best Leading Actress for her gripping performance as Linda. To put it simply, Linda is a hot mess, and at this point, she’s struggling to even pretend that she’s not. She’s hanging on by a thread and desperate for someone, anyone, to offer her some guidance or give her a break. The film also features Conan O’Brien as Linda’s checked-out therapist, A$AP Rocky as a guy who’s staying at the same motel, and a small appearance from Christian Slater as her absent husband.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including a suicide attempt,) language, drinking/smoking/drug use, sexual references, scenes of violence, and disturbing images.

Other Doctor Lives: Twenty Twelve: Series 1, Episode 4 – “Raising the Bar” (2011)

This episode goes pretty hard into cringe comedy, but it’s done quite well. I still enjoyed it, even if I felt the urge to watch some of the scenes through my fingers out of second-hand embarrassment!

The commission has kicked off their Raising the Bar campaign, aimed at getting youth excited about the Olympics. Unfortunately, the face of their campaign is Dave Wellbeck, former Olympic runner and horrendous public speaker. While Ian is busy dealing with an argument between Kay and the others over a wind turbine, Siobhan tries to convince Ian to drop Dave.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a talented athlete isn’t necessarily going to be charming, quick-witted, and engaging. And in Dave’s case, he’s pretty hopeless. He’s supposed to be traveling the country speaking to schoolkids, but he’s glued to his notecards, he can’t get his PowerPoint to line up with his speech, and he can’t get the timing right on his stilted jokes. He has a habit of peppering his presentation with, “But what is…?” questions, which he gets zero participation on—I laughed out loud at, “But what is friendship? Anybody here have any friends?”

By the way, at one of the schools Dave visits, the receptionist is played by none other than Georgie Glen, a.k.a. Miss Higgins from Call the Midwife. Fairly similar role, but in a different time period! It was fun to see her.

Our character of the week is Siobhan Sharpe, head of brand. She’s the commission’s rather shallow PR person, played by Jessica Hynes (Daisy from Spaced!) Siobhan is thoroughly unimpressed with Dave and is eager to cut the dead weight from Raising the Bar. As she puts it, “You want people to be inspired, they’ve gotta stay conscious first.” Unfortunately for her, Ian is a lot less cutthroat than Siobhan is and wants to give Dave more chances than she thinks he warrants.

The subplot about the wind turbine is fun too. Kay is eager to have it incorporated into the Olympic Park as a clear symbol of their commitment to sustainability. The problem is, that area gets hardly any wind, so it’d be a waste. “This is like building a very expensive boat in the middle of the desert,” gripes Nick, another member of the commission. Given that Kay is usually the one elbows deep in boring, unglamorous, principled work, it’s interesting that she’d bend her ideals for the sake of the image she wants to promote.

Some good bits in David Tennant’s narration today. Here are my favorite lines:

• “For many in today’s young audience, it will be the degree of crossover between the skills required to become the second-best athlete in your field and those required to be a public speaker that’s the biggest surprise” – The syntax gets a little convoluted here, but Tennant’s delivery makes it work
• “Meanwhile, Ian’s PA Sally Owen is protecting him from any unnecessary calls, irrespective of whether they’re from his wife or not” – hee!

Weapons (2025, R)

In recent years, we’ve seen horror films making more inroads at the Oscars. That’s especially true this year—hi, Sinners and Frankenstein! But while those films are the sort of “prestige horror” stuff that the Oscars have been starting to recognize, Weapons is what I’d call more of “standard horror” fare. Even though it’s only up for one major award, it’s still neat to see that kind of film get nominated!

One morning, Ms. Gandy arrives at her 3rd grade classroom to find out that only one of her students has shown up to school. Every other kid vanished the night before, leaving their homes and running off into the night at 2:17 a.m. The mystery turns the town upside down. Archer, the father of one of the missing kids, becomes obsessed with Ms. Gandy, sure that she knows more than she’s telling. Meanwhile, Ms. Gandy has been placed on leave and her last remaining student, Alex, was moved to another classroom. She’s been told to give him space, but she starts to believe something strange is going on at his house.

The movie is split into six sections, with each one following a different character on a slightly overlapping timeline. We see Ms. Gandy’s story, along with Archer’s, Alex’s, and a few others. The first time we switched perspectives, it was a little jarring to hop back in time a bit. But I got used to it as the format went on—it’s nice to fill in the blanks with what each character knows/discovers.

As I’ve said before, I don’t watch a ton of horror, so I’m not the best judge of what qualifies as a good horror film. Again, I can tell that this isn’t prestige horror along the lines of Sinners or Frankenstein. Personally, it feels kind of middle-of-the-road to me. There are some jump scares, some well-earned creepy bits, and some gore. The final section of the movie is the most engrossing for me, although I’m not altogether satisfied with the ending.

The film scored a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Amy Madigan, who plays Alex’s great-aunt Gladys. Given that her performance got the Academy’s attention, it’s safe to say that Gladys isn’t just a regular townsperson. Her cheerfully-eerie persona puts an off-kilter slant on every scene she’s in. And while it’s the sort of performance that’s helped along by her character design—the severe bangs on her bright red wig, her caked-on makeup—Madigan is very good in the role.

There are some familiar faces here as well, including several Marvel alum. I like Julia Garner (who I saw recently as the Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four) as Ms. Gandy. Even before everything kicked off, she had issues, to put it mildly—between the trauma of the kids’ disappearance and getting branded as the town pariah, she’s not handling things well. Meanwhile, Archer is played by Josh Brolin and the always-reliable Benedict Wong plays Marcus, the school principal. I knew I recognized Paul, a police officer who has a connection with Ms. Gandy. He’s played by Alden Ehrenreich, a.k.a. young Han Solo. I must not have cemented this guy in my brain yet, because this isn’t the first time I’ve recognized him but been unable to place him. The film also features appearances from Justin Long and Tob Huss (Bos from Halt and Catch Fire.)

Warning

Graphic violence/gore, sexual content, language, drinking, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements (including child abuse/neglect.)