Hello I Must Be Going

By this point in time, everybody is drooling over Melanie Lynskey's performance in "Hello I Must Be Going." I am too. But my admiration does not end strictly with her work in this ambitious little movie; there is a lot of due credit owed to her co-stars, particularly newcomer Christopher Abbott, who plays her much-younger lover, and the insistently reliable Blythe Danner as Miss Lynskey's mother. I guess Miss Lynskey is collecting most of the praise because ever since "Heavenly Creatures" in 1994 and her last appearance in "Two and a Half Men" (one of my favorite shows) everybody wants to see her become a big star. But she and everybody else in "Hello I Must Be Going" is in good form. My only wish was that they were encapsulated by a screenplay worthy of their energy and panache.

I cannot adequately describe how much I wanted to love this movie. Stories about nonconformist relationships interest me, in real life as well as in the movies. And this premise—a woman completely drained over her recent divorce discovering the true meaning of love and of live in her affair with a younger man—sounds like an absolute winner. Unfortunately, most of the fun and all of the really tender moments are collected in the first 25 minutes and the final 10; these wonderful bits, where I felt my heart strings being yanked on, sandwich a lot of padded-out detritus. And a lot of genuinely unfunny jokes. For instance: when will the romantic comedy genre ever give up on the gag where an elderly woman walks in upon a couple while they are skinny dipping? It wasn't funny when it happened to Campbell Scott and Julia Roberts in "Dying Young" 21 years ago, and it certainly is not funny here.

I cannot deny that the movie has great ambitions: it doesn't want to be just a love story; it wants to make some subtle yet true observations about life. Both Miss Lynskey and Mr. Abbott, in the course of their on-screen relationship, embark on an emotional journey, guiding them to realizing the emptiness surrounding them. A key moment in the picture is when they are having dinner with each other's families, and both are indirectly being put on the hot spot: Miss Lynskey's divorce keeps getting brought up, and Mr. Abbott's self-hated career in stage acting is the only dinner conversation his mother can think of. And then there is the final ten minutes, including a wonderful and entirely honest sequence about marriage, set in a New York diner. And I must commend screenwriter Sarah Koskoff for having the guts to write an ending in which not all of the bows are tied, not every character makes their amends.

The remarkable thing, however, is that Miss Lynskey and Mr. Abbott do not spend nearly as much time together as you would imagine. And many of their moments are punctuated by sex scenes—oh, boy, am I getting sick and tired of those as well! Thankfully, they are photographed very quick, but they do not seem to register an erotic or emotional effect. I suppose the idea was that the two characters used the sex to fill the voids in their own lives, but surely there are better ways for characters to bond. I personally am more interested in movie-couples who do not jump into bed (or into the backseat of a car, in this case) two days after they first lay eyes on one another. And after a while, good as they are, Miss Lynskey and Mr. Abbott run out of interesting things to talk about; they just start screaming at one another. And, closer to the end of the movie, just when we think we are about to get a truly beautiful moment—a reconciliation—the movie has to pull the dumb, somebody-opens-the-door gag which completely stops the scene. Then there's the excess characters: Julie White exists for no purpose other than to drive Melanie Lynskey home from the bar one night; Jimmi Simpson plays a drip so mawkishly pathetic that I found myself looking to my watch. I understand the point of the character: he's supposed to represent to Miss Lynskey what might eventually become of her. It's not the intentions or the acting, it's the writing.

Then there's the other thing that rubbed me raw. Laura Veirs is credited for writing the original score for this movie, but it's hard to appreciate her instrumental work since most of the soundtrack is riddled with about six or seven too many songs. Maybe it's a personal problem; I'm one of the few people of my generation (adult males under 30) who is not particularly interested in contemporary music. But if I saw one more walking scene with a bunch of overblown lyrics thumping away in the background, I was going to start pounding my forehead.

Believe me when I tell you, I really regret having to stomp all over "Hello I Must Be Going." There is so much ambition in this movie and so many really talented people involved. And even though I've faulted screenwriter Koskoff's work, she does show promise: a bold story and some bursts of really good dialogue. As somebody who has been on the set of an independent movie, I know how much hard work goes into making one. I know script changes are constantly being made; there's pressure to get everything done on schedule. And above all, I hate to put it down for the same reason I always hate giving negative reviews in general: I have to admit to a storyteller that I did not like the story they were telling. But I have to be absolutely honest: "Hello I Must Be Going" did not register very much emotional impact with me. Again, in the beginning and at the end, there is a lot of punch, the middle of the movie really drags for me.

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.

A great performance by Melanie Lynskey is tainted by "dirty", completely unnecessary R-rated content that could have and should have been omitted to make this a clean PG-rated film.

While showing us a sad middle-aged divorcee slowly turning her life around by flinging with a teenager, this film preaches that guys are jerks, parents are hopeless, modern art is beautiful, modern artists are important, what Jeremy pretends to be is a great thing, how Gwen behaves about it is even greater, and also that are weed and anti-depressants are wonderful.

There's so much unrealistic profanity that it gets silly, and there are some indie trope traps, but it's an interesting film nonetheless. It's low-key and mostly well-crafted, with very good performances also from Sarah Chase, Blythe Danner, and Julie White.

Edit: After a year, an additional viewing, and lots of additional pondering, I will add that I now think this film is not about Amy but rather her parents. Amy gets most of the screen time, but it's actually about mom and dad having struggled for years through a stressful, unhappy marriage, and the effects this has had on everyone.

Amy's mom is miserable and a major insomniac. Amy's dad is in denial and manipulates. The parents seem to have given up at attempting to communicate with one another many years ago. Amy is a bit of a wreck with almost no self-esteem. And Amy's brother is a spoiled ingrate.

All of this, if you watch and listen closely, stems from decades of the bad marriage.

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.

(2012) Hello, I Must Be Going DRAMA

Not bad movie, but was only credible up until a certain point, which was until the female main star who's middle age, begin to have one of many affairs with a 19 year old young man. The movie stars, Amy (Melanie Lynskey) who still can't get over a recent divorce from her husband of many years. And she shows this by staying with her parents house without taking a single step outside- similar to how a hermit would live. While hanging around there, her mother (Blyth Danner) then informs her, that as a result her husband trying to get some clients, both of them can go on to their pre-planned world wide vacation, except that they're expected to have dinner with the main boss. Upon bringing his own family to this dinner also includes his 19 year old actor son, Jeremy (Christopher Abbott). It's like Jeremy doesn't seem to have any other friends neither from high school or from college, no mentioning of any goals, including the fact that it would take an affair with a 19 year old to help a middle age woman identify herself is something one can see from a soap opera. Except that it's more credible on a soap opera than it would be for a two hour movie as it would require a time spawn of several months if not years for anything like that to happen in real life.