Amy Minsky, the hapless heroine in the wry comedy "Hello I Must Be Going," is having a bad patch.

Just divorced at 35, and unmotivated to do anything with her life, Amy (played with poignancy and dead-on comic skills by Melanie Lynskey) has moved back in with her parents (Blythe Danner, John Rubenstein) in well-off Westport, Conn. Then she happens to meet Jeremy (Christopher Abbott), a 19-year-old actor — and soon the two of them are deep in a sexual relationship that Amy just knows is wrong. Or is it?

Director Todd Louiso ("Love Liza") finds the right balance of laughter and sadness in this offbeat romance, while the script by Sarah Koskoff (a playwright and Louiso's wife) is effortlessly brilliant.

Lynskey (familiar to fans of "Two and a Half Men") imbues the self-doubting Amy with such lightness that she manages to make neediness appealing.

movies@sltrib.com; nowsaltlake.com/movies —

HHH

'Hello I Must Be Going'

Opens Friday, Nov. 2, at the Tower Theatre; rated rated R for language and sexual content; 95 minutes.