Rose Byrne's Golden Globe Is a Win for Moms in the Most Devastating Way

Rose Byrne’s Golden Globe for her role in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a win for moms, even if the plot of the film is a devastating depiction of motherhood.

In If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Byrne plays a mom pushed to the brink as she’s left to care for her sick daughter alone. Based on the real-life experience of writer-director Mary Bronstein, Byrne’s character finds herself living in a motel with her daughter as she takes her to medical treatment alone, tries to keep her head above water at work, and fields complaints from her husband, who is away for work.

Perfectly capturing the sometimes claustrophobic aspects of motherhood, the film perfectly depicts what it’s like to bear the burden of parenthood alone. In doing so, it emphasizes the need for support, both personal and institutional.

Byrne’s win, in a year marked with several impressive depictions of motherhood, recognizes the need to talk about the hard parts of being a mom and platforms a story that speaks to those parts, even if we wish it wasn’t a story that needed to be told.

“I share this with Mary Bronstein, my writer-director,” Byrne said as she tearfully accepted the award. “She wrote this unbelievable screenplay and she wanted me to do it and I can’t believe that you wanted me to do it. You’re just the best and I love you.”

Of the film, Bronstein told Cultured back in October, that the idea for the film came from the dread she felt over caring for her sick daughter. “I had to put my whole self into caring for my daughter, trying to get her better, and getting back to New York. I felt a real dread,” she explained to Cultured. But then I realized that the dread wasn’t about what was going on at that moment. The dread became, ‘She’s gonna get better and we are going to go back to New York—and then what? Who am I? What am I going to do?'”

Byrne’s critically-acclaimed performance has generated Oscars buzz and this Golden Globes win will no doubt keep that buzz going.