“Mommy is stretchable,” claims the nameless and faceless daughter of Rose Byrne’s Linda at the outset of Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Cinematographer Christopher Messina already captures the actress in a tight close-up from the first frame, and his camera pushes in as close as a single eyeball while she feverishly disputes her child’s characterization. It’s a dynamic established early on for the visual style as well as the narrative: The more Linda protests, the more claustrophobic she becomes.

Bronstein never takes her foot off the gas across this tense tale of a mother swirling in a vortex of burnout. The camera scarcely ever leaves Byrne’s face in an extended prologue that culminates in a ceiling collapsing into Linda’s apartment, flooding it and forcing her to shack up in a dingy motel with her daughter. Once the title card hits,...