On a long enough timeline, critics develop a complicated relationship toward sincerity. They’ve seen it all, which means it takes a lot for them to have a genuine emotional response. This is why it is common for frustrated fans to dismiss critics as too jaded. Another corollary to that complicated relationship, one that is not talked about as often, is critics have a refined bullshit detector. They can spot manipulative bullshit a mile away (the good ones can, anyhow). Linoleum, the new sci-fi drama from writer and director Colin West, is a good test of that detector. It is smarmy and insincere right to its maudlin core, and its mawkish attempts to evoke an emotional response are unintentionally hilarious.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan stars as Cameron, the host of a Bill Nye-style science television series. Depressed and uninspired, Cameron is going through a divorce with his wife Erin (Rhea Seehorn), while he learns that his show is being given to a handsome, more charismatic scientist. Now is a good time to pause, because Gaffigan also plays this more charismatic scientist, named Kent, who moves in across the street from Cameron and drives a fancy sports car. Kent’s son Marc (Gabriel Rush) strikes up a friendship with Cameron’s daughter Nora (Katelyn Nacon), an arrangement that annoys both sets of parents. While this domestic drama unfolds, Cameron fixates on building a rocket in his backyard.
Yes, a rocket. Linoleum is a bait-and-switch, as it starts off as a science fiction film with a surrealist streak. Strange things happen to Cameron: he can build a rocket because remnants of an Apollo shuttle land in his backyard, and when a car falls out of the sky seemingly at random, it nearly kills him. Nora and Erin treat these developments with frustration and borderline hostility, and West wants us to think the film is some kind of puzzle, dovetailing all the coincidence with the larger theme of failed potential (Erin is not immune to this, since she resents her mediocre career and projects her shortcomings on Nora). In individual moments, all the major performers elevate the material, particularly Seehorn, whose flinty presence from “Better Call Saul” is bit warmer here.
The trouble is that the actors and the “puzzle box” conceit are all in service of a single concept that West explores ad nauseum. It does not take a rocket scientist to put it all together, particularly after Cameron visits his father with ailing health/memory, and the production values start to develop an ageless quality, as if the world of Linoleum exists outside of time. That’s right: the film becomes a kind of elegy toward family and memory, with multiple actors representing the same person. It is a twist insofar that West reveals the scope of his conceit in the final minutes, and yet it is easy enough to spot within the first 20 minutes.
Now, Linoleum is not a bad film because canny viewers will see the twist early. It is bad because there is not much beyond it: dialogue coils and repeats itself, creating a phony kind of poetry, which is to say anything can sound profound once it’s robbed of its context. And when that is not enough, West overstates his message with the superfluous introduction of extremely sad things, like a dead child. He does not trust the viewer, and in thinking their heart strings are not sufficiently pulled, he compounds the tragedy like he’s lobbing a grenade. Such an approach does not add poignance, and instead heightens the artificiality of the whole endeavor.
Many critics celebrate Linoleum as a heartfelt, low-key affirmation of a life well lived. If it does do that, it is with all the wisdom and depth of a Hallmark card. By the time West finally weaves all his narrative threads so we understand the full scope of the tragedy, Cameron and the rest are not characters, but vessels to inspire “all the feels.” A better film would understand that crucial difference.
Photo courtesy of Shout! Factory
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