Come la prima volta

I was not familiar with Melanie until I fell in love with her and I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore.

Since then, I've been trying to catch up with her movies and have found her TERRIFIC in all of them.

This was a movie I had been holding off on because I read that it dealt with divorce and having been through it...I try to avoid those types of movies.

Boy am I glad I finally watched it. Melanie Lynskey hit a home run! Charming, sharp, witty and most of all beautiful!

The supporting cast did a very fine job as well and I really enjoyed every minute of the movie.

I recommend it to anybody looking to escape for an hour and a half.

I don't know why is this movie so criminally scored. It's a well told, well directed and well acted original story. It does lose focus a bit towards the very end, but it remains engaging and sweet in essence.

The plot is simple but also tactfully told, moves along well and it's peppered with touching moments of honesty. The protagonist's role is refreshingly crafted and accordingly acted. It has a clear structure and a detailed pacing through which we are given numerous invitations to delve in the protagonist's emotional state and even to indulge in soul searching nostalgia.

I'm really surprised at how this movie got such a low score. I treated these scores with a certain respectability when reviewing the possible movies I might spend my free time with. Outraged, I say!

This film screened at the 2012 New Hampshire Film Festival in Portsmouth, NH and several of the people I spoke to after really enjoyed it. I will admit that I felt it was slow at times. However, for anyone who has been through a divorce or knows someone who has been through a divorce, this is a fun film that I think can help a lot of people. I saw myself in some of the characters and I saw my friends and family. Two friends who saw the movie said that one scene came right out of their own lives after they got divorced. So while it may not be for everyone, I highly recommend this film to people who can relate to the material and think they might enjoy seeing the difficult subject of divorce treated with intelligence, humanity and humor.

The underlying feeling tones that stood out in this movie for me were: Real, Raw, Genuine, Authentic, Intimate and Sincere Connection. The film reminded me of a time in life when you're in college, living on student loans or in your parents house and you still have the time and the innocence (you haven't yet been scarred and jarred by "the real world") to make these beautiful, sometimes fleeting…sometimes short-lived connections with another human being. Things like sharing family secrets, or staying on the phone until 6am while the sun comes up. Once the focus becomes "the job", "the bills" and other responsibilities; many of these beautiful moments become lost. Once an "adult", one quickly learns that relationships are often superficial, dis-honest and based on ulterior motives. This movie put me in touch with the emotions of what it's like to feel alive, loved and accepted even though you don't have it all figured out. Overall, I would give the movie a 6 but for emotional impact, I would add another 2 stars. Great gem of a film with a perfect soundtrack to accompany.

Amy (Melanie Lynskey) has left her husband and moved back with her parents (Blythe Danner, John Rubinstein). She is depressed and unmotivated. She can barely get up the will to dress nicely for a dinner party. At the party, she begins an affair with 19 year old Jeremy (Christopher Abbott). She becomes energized as she risks discovery of the inappropriate affair.

This is Melanie Lynskey's movie and her best performance ever. As always she is her lovable vulnerable self. But she stretches to encompass the many different emotions of her character. The only problem is the perfectly crafted speeches she gives. It's a thin line between poignant emotional truth and too perfect hokey monologue. Luckily Amy is a middle age character, not the usual emo teen. So I'm willing to go with the former, and buy that she's a lit major. Melanie Lynskey finally returns to a lead role in a movie. And she is amazing in it. I hope she will get more chances at the leading lady role in the future.