The film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which has earned Rose Byrne her first Oscar nomination, aims to immerse its audience members to feel like they are experiencing a two-hour panic attack. The main character’s chaotic and stressful reality is portrayed in such an intriguing way.

One of the unique creative choices in the film is that the child is never shown on screen. Bronstein’s reasoning for this decision was that audiences naturally empathize with children, regardless of the circumstances. If we saw the child, our attention would’ve been immediately directed to them. By keeping the child out of view and only allowing us to hear their voice, the film forces us to focus more on the mother’s experience. We’re left with feeling the mother’s stress and exhaustion, as we constantly hear about the child’s condition and the chaos surrounding it, but we never actually see the child. This creates a more uncomfortable viewing experience.

The film is incredibly realistic, as the problems the mother has to deal with are all something she has to handle at once, without the luxury of sitting back and analyzing the situation. You have to move through these problems all at once no matter what, which is exactly what the film captures. From handling her relationship with her therapist, to her daughter’s condition, to her husband’s absence, to her own patients as a psychotherapist, to even dealing with her missing patient, the movie portrays a constant state of anxiety. Scene after scene piles on each other, creating an exhausting feeling.

I do think that the discomfort felt is the point of the film. Not every film is supposed to make us feel happy or entertained; this one aims to make the audience unsettled. By doing this, Bronstein forces viewers to sit with the stress and helplessness that the character feels. Whether someone actually enjoys the film or not depends on how well they’re willing to sit with the discomfort, but regardless of personal preference, the movie’s untraditional structure makes it a powerful example of how much power filmmaking choices have over how we feel.