The story is partly autobiographical – drawn from Bornstein’s ordeal during an illness suffered by her own daughter, together with her experiences as a psychotherapist working in hospitals. Linda, too, is a psychotherapist, a fact which only serves to amplify the satire as she tries to deal with her patients while looking for help from her own therapist, played with an eye-rolling display of indifference by the talk show host Conan O’Brien.

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Bornstein’s script is built on the comedy of exaggeration pushed to such extremes that supposedly ordinary incidents inevitably lead to disaster. In Die My Love, Lawrence is tormented by a yappy dog that her misguided husband brings home as a gift, but this animal doesn’t begin to compete with the malevolent hamster that Linda takes into her care after giving in to her daughter’s desire for a pet.

The only sympathetic character in her life is the rapper A$AP Rocky, cast as the superintendent of the motel where she’s staying. He has a drugs supply which provides her with a little temporary relief but by this point, her relationship with reality is so tenuous that events are taking on the hallucinatory nature of a horror movie.

I can’t say that these switches in tone are entirely successful. Bornstein puts you on an unnerving and slightly mystifying rollercoaster ride which has you gasping for air, but she has certainly served Byrne well. It’s the role of a lifetime and Byrne embraces it with everything she’s got.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is in cinemas from November 13.

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