Oh, Hi! (2025) Sony Pictures Classics/Comedy RT: 94 minutes Rated R (sexual content, some nudity, language) Director: Sophie Brooks Screenplay: Sophie Brooks Music: Steven Price Cinematography: Conor Murphy Release date: July 25, 2025 (US) Cast: Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds, David Cross, Polly Draper.
Rating: ** ½
Indie rom-coms are a breed unto themselves. They’re nothing like the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romps that were popular in the 90s. They’re usually anything but conventional. Look at last month’s Materialists. It had rom, but very little com. Call me crazy, but I don’t find anything funny about sexual assault. Now we’ve got Oh, Hi!, a twisted romance about a young woman who doesn’t take rejection very well. Think of Misery without the sledge hammer.
What starts off as a romantic getaway turns into a nightmare when the guy says something the girl doesn’t want to hear. Iris (Gordon, Good Boys) and Isaac (Lerman, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) have been going together for four months. They decide to take a weekend trip to a secluded house in the country. It starts off great. They have sex, go swimming, relax outside and talk about their likes and dislikes. He makes dinner for her, scallops. They retire to the bedroom for more sex, this time involving light bondage. Isaac allows Iris to cuff him to the bed, hand and foot. That’s when things go south.
Iris makes an offhand comment about them being a couple. This is when Isaac (unwisely as it turns out) chooses to inform her that he’s not looking to be in a relationship right now. It does not go over well with Iris who, it turns out, isn’t exactly stable. She refuses to unlock the cuffs. Instead, she decides to try and change his mind. Talk about a captive audience.
“DUDE, YOU REALLY NEED TO WORK ON YOUR TIMING!”
That’s the thought that was running through my mind throughout Oh, Hi! Who drops a bombshell like that while in a vulnerable position? This chick isn’t playing with a full deck. Now he’s potentially screwed. And this is the precise point of Oh, Hi! We’ve all been in relationships where we misread the situation and learn the other person doesn’t have the same feelings for us. It hurts (a lot), but it’s part of the game. Some people handle rejection better than others. Most just shake it off and move on. Others, not so much. Then there’s Iris, a walking worst case scenario if ever there was one.
Oh, Hi! has an intriguing premise, as you can see, but writer-director Sophie Brooks (The Boy Downstairs) doesn’t take it anywhere interesting. It has great dark comic potential and Brooks sees it. This is where the problem lies. She tries too hard to be truly edgy which results in a movie that’s noticeably self-conscious. A lot of the time, the comedy feels forced, especially with the addition of two more characters, Iris’ friend Max (Viswanathan, Drive-Away Dolls) and her annoyingly amiable boyfriend Kenny (Reynolds, Four Weddings and a Funeral). Is he even necessary? If Brooks had the courage to go there, she could have eliminated his character altogether.
This brings me to my next point about Oh, Hi! Brooks wants to be edgy, but seems afraid to go where most rom-coms won’t. Take the ending. It’s too simple and neat. A situation like the one depicted here shouldn’t have an easy resolution. That should be reserved for mainstream rom-coms. SPOILER ALERT! Here, somebody misquotes a famous line from Casablanca before the cut to black. Uh, okay. That’s it? I think Brooks could have done better.
The performances in Oh, Hi!, while by no means terrible, are underwhelming. I commented to more than one person that Iris makes my ex-wife look like a completely rational person. She has this quiet calm about her as she engages in criminal activity, namely kidnapping and false imprisonment. She doesn’t even flinch when she considers giving him a head injury in an attempt to cause amnesia. Gordon does a decent job of portraying an unstable woman who doesn’t come off as especially dangerous. I never felt like Isaac was in any real jeopardy. In the role, Lerman is okay. He doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression. I saw no chemistry between the actors or their characters which leads me to wonder why Iris wanted to continue the relationship. It’s never explained, but I suspect it’s loneliness on her part. How many of us have stayed in a relationship because they don’t want to be alone?
The best performance in Oh, Hi! comes from Viswanathan. I like her. She has a dry wit about her. Her character here is interesting unlike the two leads. She’s the one who comes up with the idea of using a magic spell to make Isaac forget everything that happened. Reynolds is just annoying.
Here’s the thing. I don’t hate Oh, Hi! It’s not bad; it’s just flawed. It could have been so much better. As it stands, it’s an interesting watch. It’s just not as darkly funny as it should be. Brooks should have gone darker and thrown some farce into the mix. That would have made it more memorable than it is in its present form. It’s frustrating that it’s all right there and Brooks doesn’t jump on it. However, you can see she has talent so maybe she’ll get it right next time. We’ll see.
