LFF - Linoleum
Still from Linoleum (Blue Fox Entertainment)
One of the best movies I have watched at the London Film Festival is Harry Macqueen’s sensational Supernova, a film that utilizes the destructive, explosive brilliantness of the universe to underscore the destructive, explosive brilliantness of the human mind.
At this year’s London Film Festival, Double Walker director Colin West has similarly utilised the endless expansion and chaos of dreaming of the stars in his latest film - Linoleum.
Stand-Up Icon Jim Gaffigan plays Cameron, the host of a children’s science show who ends up spiralling into a midlife crisis after a rocket crash from the sky into his back garden. Dreaming of something “fantastic”, he decides to take initiative and use the broken vessel to construct a space-ship of his own making.
Linoleum may have everyone fooled for the first three quarters of its runtime. West’s film asserts itself up as a quirky, slightly surreal ‘coming of age’ American comedy. As Cameron delves into his ambition, so do his family – wife Erin (Rhea Seehorn) and daughter Nora (Katelyn Nacon) who collide towards evaluating their relationship towards their ambitions, their romantic interests, and to each other.
There’s a breadcrumb trail of foreshadowing that may initially give the appearance of glib eccentricity at first, like a shrugged attempt at interesting moments. How wrong I was, to assume there wasn’t more at play here. For the last ten minutes of Linoleum, you get hit with a thunderous, light-speed levelled realisation of what the movie is actually about. As I pieced the puzzle together, tears welled in my eyes. It’s rare that a film is so rewarding in its final bow, but … wow.
Linoleum’s emotional payoff is maybe not enough to offset how perfectly ‘just okay’ everything else about the film is (albeit chucklesome, and definitely watchable), but there’s a real emotional renumeration at the core of this piece that I found exceptionally special.
