“Linoleum,” the enigmatic feature from Colin West, is so determinedly coy in its early scenes that it risks losing the audience before the midway point. It’s well worth sticking around, though, as this sci-fi-flavored family drama more than repays our patience.
The sky is falling on Cameron (Jim Gaffigan), a middle-aged scientist who once dreamed of being an astronaut. His wife (Rhea Seehorn) is divorcing him, his father’s dementia is worsening and he’s being removed as host of the children’s TV show he created. Worse, his replacement, Kent (also Gaffigan), is a former astronaut who looks like a harder, meaner version of himself — a resemblance Cameron notes right after Kent and his convertible crash out of the sky in front of him.
The next object to rain from above is a satellite, from whose wreckage Cameron decides to build a rocket ship and reclaim his youthful ambitions. Yet “Linoleum” isn’t a generic, if bizarre midlife-crisis movie: For one thing, there’s a touching bond forming between Cameron’s daughter and Kent’s son (Katelyn Nacon and Gabriel Rush), misfits struggling to negotiate their sexual identities. Their scenes together are some of the loveliest in the film, and West handles them with a tenderness that tells us how much this relationship matters.
As the story darkens and a growing chill freezes out its earlier whimsy, Ed Wu’s camera becomes increasingly distracted by the surreal: an eerily cracked astronaut’s helmet; a benign old woman loitering in the middle distance. And just when we’re wondering where all this is going, West executes a final act as devilish as it is emotionally potent. Maybe that tale of disappointment and abandoned dreams was really something else all along.
Linoleum
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters.
