If I Had Legs I'd Kick You Changed My Mind About About A Classic Book I Read Way Back In High School

If you had told me when I sat down to watch If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which is now available with an HBO Max subscription, that by the end I would be thinking about Kate Chopin’s The Awakening at the end, I wouldn’t have believed you. I haven’t thought about that book since 10th grade, way back in the 20th century, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to think of it now, because of the movie where Rose Byrne has rightly been nominated for an Oscar (and already has won a Golden Globe for). But, here we are.

And be warned, there are SPOILERS AHEAD, especially of the endings of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You and The Awakening.

The Movie Surprised Me, And The Memory Surprised Me More

One thing is for sure: Chopin’s The Awakening is NOT the best book for 10th-grade boys, like I was when I read it. I dismissed it (and probably worse) at the time, though I did read the whole thing (not something I always did in those days). Because I frankly didn’t understand it then, I thought it was an overwrought, silly book. I didn’t connect with Edna, the book’s protagonist, and that’s putting it mildly. In fact, I’m sure I made fun of her.

That goes right up until the end, too, when she takes her own life by drowning herself in the ocean. As 10th-grade boys are wont to do, this tickled me. Or confused me. Or stunned me. Probably all three, but what it didn’t do was provide me any kind of insight. That’s not a slight on Chopin’s work; it’s a slight on me being a teenage idiot. Still, it has obviously stuck with me, because here I am 30 years later thinking about it in connection with one of the best movies of 2025.

I'm Surprised More People Aren’t Talking About This Homage

Obviously, this isn’t a book-to-screen adaptation of The Awakening, but if you’re familiar with both works, the ending of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You seems to be a clear homage to the book first published in 1899. In it, Edna Pontellier throws herself into the ocean, dying by suicide, after being repeatedly kicked down in life and love. It was, for its time, a startling look at the lives of women in that era, and it has since become one of the most celebrated feminist novels in history.

In If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Linda (Byrne) also faces similar trials in love, especially with her seemingly heartless husband (Christian Slater), whom Linda sees as abandoning her and their child as he goes off for months away at work as a sea captain. Like Edna, Linda reaches a point where she thinks her only escape is to run into the ocean and end her stressful life.

Linda is rejected by the ocean, and after repeated attempts to drown, she finds herself awake on the beach with her daughter smiling at her. Or does she? Unlike The Awakening, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You’s ending is more ambiguous, and as an audience, we’re left wondering what is real and what isn’t, but the homage, at least for me, is clear. It also made me finally appreciate the book that I read so many years ago.

I can’t wait to tune into the Oscars in March with my Hulu subscription to see if Byrne takes home the trophy for Best Actress.