SXSW ‘22: ‘LINOLEUM’, A Life from Orbit

Jim Gaffigan stars as astronomer and public television personality Cameron Edwin in Colin West’s science fiction-tinged festival dramedy Linoleum. A bodega-version Bill Nye, Cameron leads the failing daily children’s show ‘Above & Beyond’ which after years of existing in obscurity has been picked up by a major network. The rub? Cameron will be replaced as the show’s host by his straight-laced doppelgänger Kent Armstrong (also played by Gaffigan), a more successful, better looking version of himself whose arrival signals a series of enigmatic occurrences. Not everything is as it seems.

At home, Cameron’s marriage is crumbling. His wife Erin, played by Rhea Seehorn (known best as Saul’s on-again-off-again romantic partner Kim in Better Call Saul), has had enough of his unrealized aspirations and considers a major career shift that would force her to move hours away. Meanwhile, their daughter Nora (Katelyn Nacon) befriends the new kid at school Marc (Gabriel Rush), who just so happens to be the son of Cameron’s militant lookalike.

When a rocket randomly crash lands in their home’s background, the family’s already hectic life is thrown into utter turmoil. The spacey dramedy from sophomore filmmaker West explores the intersectionality of life and family – the connective tissue of spousal tension and career disappointments that nestles in a man’s gray matter like plaque. As Cameron’s ailing father Mac (Roger Hendricks Simon) suffers from dementia, struggling to keep reality straight under the eye of Dr. Alvin (Tony Shalhoub), the totality of his life is experienced as if from orbit. A swirl of highlights and embarrassments, unrealized aspirations and remarkable kindnesses, all kaleidoscopically bumping around in his brain.

Linoleum offers a thoughtful deconstruction of suburban life, where dreams go not to die but wither. As Cameron attempts to fulfill his youthful aspirations by rebuilding the crashed rocket in his garage, the child in him comes out again and dares to dream. He always wanted to be an astronaut and even in his older state continues to mail in applications to NASA. Linloeum is, in a sense, a movie about holding onto dreams and figuring out a way to incorporate our wildest ambitions into the fabric of the domesticated life.

Audiences may find themselves split on the reality-reorienting third act twist which reveals that nothing was quite as it seemed. Perhaps to a point of rendering everything we’ve seen before moot – at least from an plot perspective. Some may consider the script’s decision to reframe the events of the film as a bit of a cheat but it works to hold up the emotional honesty that makes up the center of the film, which remains throughout a well-intentioned emotion-driven character study. West’s spacey drama may not make it all the way to the moon but it certainly achieves lift off.

CONCLUSION: Jim Gaffigan employs his dramatic chops in ‘Linoleum’ as an aspiring astronaut turned obscure children’s show host in Colin West’s exploratory vision of a life from orbit.