Mary Bronstein Answers the Question: Is If I Had Legs I'd Kick You a Disabled Story?
"It's 2025...It's time for everybody to stop telling other people's stories," she says.
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In director Mary Bronstein's latest feature, If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, Rose Byrne's Linda spends her day caring for her daughter who is connected to a feeding tube, struggling with ARVID. If you've read me long enough, and have my book on pre-order, you might call this an example of caretaker cinema, wherein to tell a disabled narrative, a creative focuses exclusively on the able-bodied caretaker at the detriment to the disabled. But what Bronstein has done with her fabulous new feature is tell a story that is a caretaker story without turning the character into an able-bodied buffer.
"If somebody with a disability, or with complicated health needs, or with a chronic illness feels seen, or if a caretaker of such a person feels seen by this movie, I'm all for it," Bronstein tells The Film Maven.
