I saw this film at the Berlin Film Festival where it enjoyed a moderately enthusiastic reception by the audience on premiere night. "If I Had Legs..." depicts a challenging time in the life of a female therapist who struggles with a sick child, the child's teacher, her flat, a female patient, the absence of her spouse - who is in the Navy and on a long term assignment - as well as her own therapist (played almost completely emotionless by Conan O'Brien), and her demons and neuroses. However, what could have been a fascinating study of motherhood and the demands faced by modern women is little more than a cheap-looking indie drama that I found very difficult to sit through. The reason for that is that instead of delivering a realistic depiction of issues, the film primarily focuses on thrills and shock effects. It's basically one disturbing scene after the other. And because even that didn't seem to be enough for the director, she added unbelievably intrusive sound design that tries to put the viewer into a permanent state of alarm. But even this concept could have worked it the story would have been sound. It isn't though - everything seems incredibly contrived and unrealistic and bears no relation to the real world or the problems of real people. And none of the characters seem even remotely credible either. Their behaviour is completely devoid of logic, realism and humanity. Which leaves the dialogue, which also seemed extremely artificial to me. It was wonderful to see Conan O'Brien on the big screen, but even he was unlikable. Overall, this movie may be trying to sell itself as an ambitious, intellectual arthouse flick. But in reality, it's just 113 minutes of emotional waterboarding that left me feeling quite annoyed when it ended.
