Linoleum (2022)
5/10
Never More Than Average, and A Pale and Hazy Shadow of Much Better Films
11 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The mediocre host of a children's science TV show resolves to change his life when part of a space rocket crashes into his house.

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Linoleum is a sloppily thrown-together cocktail of a bunch of other, better, films all at once: Donnie Darko, American Beauty, Synecdoche New York, Eternal Sunshine, Vanilla Sky, The Notebook...: everything about it just seems a cut-price version of something else, and I couldn't get past seeing Jim Gaffigan himself as a knock-off Phillip Seymour Hoffman. And though I warmed at times to some of the characters as it dawdled along, it never at any point rises above that summation.

By the time the twist-of-sorts comes along, that all the characters are just the main couple at different stages of their lives, I was way too bored to care, and nothing about the ending feels convincing or makes any sense. I feel it could have been realized much better in a short story format than acted out on the screen this way. The idea needed far better writing and filmmaking to work the magic it needed to pull it off.

Not a terrible film, but it's unimaginative, uninspired, poorly thought-out and instantly forgettable.

And I've still no idea why it's called Linoleum.
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