As the couple in Oh, Hi! struggles to fully commit, the Sundance romantic-comedy from Sophie Brooks also struggled to connect with its audience.
Writer-director Brooks’ sophomore feature stars Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman as Iris and Isaac, a new couple who goes on a romantic getaway that comes to a screeching halt when they reach a misunderstanding about their relationship status. With Isaac chained up during an act of light kink, Iris takes advantage of her captive audience to convince him to be her boyfriend.
Although Brooks’ followup to the charming 2017 feature The Boy Downstairs has the recipe for an enjoyable romantic-comedy, with supporting performances from that always hilarious Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds, Oh, Hi! ultimately struggles to find its footing.
Even with some heavy-handed exposition to catch us up on their brief relationship, there’s not enough character development to tell us how these people have changed as individuals, let alone as a potential couple. With more of a heartfelt connection between Iris and her mother (Polly Draper) and better comedic chemistry with a random neighbor (David Cross), there’s hardly a spark left for her and Isaac.
Perhaps that was the intention in Brooks’ script, which co-written with Gordon, as the movie is ultimately about two people who should not be together.
At one point during her impromptu hostage situation, Gordon’s Iris admitted she didn’t have much of a plan past keeping him tied up, which felt like an unfortunate metaphor for the structure of the story in which only half the jokes land… as if they were hoping the audience would get Stockholm syndrome.
The second act slightly picks up as Iris is allowed to explore her craziness, but it’s ultimately situational humor without any meaningful character development.
Even though Iris prefaced their weekend getaway with a disturbing intrusive thought about a previous boyfriend, her big unhinged moment is ultimately a passive decision to not untie her boyfriend. Isaac later makes a more active move in his attempt to escape, even when it’s pretty clearly an overcorrect as he’s in no real danger — other than the monotony of a group of 20-somethings trying to socialize outside of an urban hub.
While Oh, Hi! attempts to speak to a generation disillusioned with romance, in pursuit of something more lasting, it’s ultimately a dark comedy that doesn’t say anything new about how millennials and gen Z view sex, monogamy and mental health.
Amid a film festival lineup with beautifully twisted stories about the raw, complex experience of human connection, Oh, Hi! falls a little short.
Producers are David Brooks, Dan Clifton, Julie Waters, Sophie Brooks and Molly Gordon.
Title: Oh, Hi!
Festival: Sundance (Premieres)
Sales Agent: UTA, WME
Director: Sophie Brooks
Screenwriter: Sophie Brooks, Molly Gordon
Cast: Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds
Running time: 1 hr 34 min
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