'Hello I Must Be Going': First-world problems, real emotions.
Occasionally a movie gets to the guts of human emotion honestly.
Hello I Must Be Going is one of those movies. It features a wonderful and understated performance by Melanie Lynskey as Amy, a divorcing woman in her mid-30s, who tries to pull herself back together after a sudden end to what she thought was a good marriage.
In order to cope with her grief, Amy moves in with her mother (Blythe Danner, doing the uptight mom thing she does so well) and father (John Rubinstein).
One night at a dinner party—for complicated plot reasons that are better forgotten—Amy meets Jeremy (Christopher Abbot), about 15 years her junior, and they begin a brief, clandestine and torrid affair.
Whether the relationship lasts isn’t the point; Amy and Jeremy use the experience (without using each other) to reexamine their lives. Hello I Must Be Going is never syrupy—and it’s pretty funny, to boot.
Sure, these are first-world problems (the movie is set in Westport, Conn.), but the emotions are real and that counts in an age when many films avoid complex feelings in place of cheap laughs.
Abbot is good and Lynskey is terrific. It’s refreshing to see her in a starring role.
CCA Cinemathque, R, 94 min.
