‘Oh, Hi!’ Review: A Terrific Cast Led by Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman Can Barely Keep a Modern-Day ‘Misery’ Afloat
For a movie billed as a relationship comedy — or rather, a “situationship” comedy, as modern-day dating arrangements go — writer-director Sophie Brooks’ “Oh, Hi!” starts off rather ominously, with the movie spoiling its own shift in tone that would kick in later. Eerie music plays as we take in the deeply concerned face and big green eyes of Iris, played by Molly Gordon in a boundless and bouncily unhinged performance. She confesses that she’s done something bad to someone we don’t yet see.
It’s an intriguing setup, one that sufficiently grabs the attention as Brooks turns the clock back to some 30 hours earlier in her increasingly exhausting dark comedy, where complex and imperfect people make back-to-back bad decisions and dating is reliably hard for young people navigating apps and bars full of selfish weirdos. In this elongated flashback, we follow Iris and her boyfriend Isaac (an enchanting Logan Lerman) as they happily drive through picturesque winding roads of New York State, blissfully singing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ “Islands in the Stream.” Gorgeous bodies of water in spring time, plenty of sunshine, cinematic-looking red barns and of course farm stands that sell in-season strawberries. Uh-oh, is that Isaac flirting with the strawberry lady in front of Iris?
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After a comical accident — let’s say that they end up with too many strawberries — the cheery couple arrive at their rental at High Falls. (The title is a cheeky play on the town’s name.) It must be one of those Super Host-type Airbnbs, as the gorgeous and generously appointed lake house proves to be a slice of paradise. The duo have plenty of sex — you’ve got to hand it to Brooks for knowing how to shoot a steamy intimacy scene — swim in the lake, cook a fancy meal of scallops and dine under string lights. From the getting-to-know-you questions they keep asking each other, it’s obvious that Iris and Isaac are at the start of their relationship. He likes books, whereas she is a movie person. They’ve both gotten their hearts broken once — Isaac, by his cheating father, and Iris, by an ex whom she had thoughts of stabbing. Again, uh-oh!
And yet, so far, so good. Serving up various genuine scenes between the duo who are intensely into each other, Brooks has a few amusing lines under her belt, like “I thrive on missionary,” when they discuss their preferred sex positions, upon deciding to try some of the kinky tools they find inside a closet. Fast forward to their post-coital bliss, and a reveal comes. Turns out, to Iris’s understandable shock, Isaac has never thought of their four-month relationship as being exclusive. To him, they have never discussed seeing only one another, which is surprising, given they are a couple on a weekend getaway together. The trouble is, he comes clean with this revelation before Iris has a chance to unlock the cuffs around his ankles and wrists, attached to a four-poster bed.
Much of what happens after this point — which turns “Oh, Hi!” to a Gen-Z “Misery” of sorts — is frustrating, with both Iris and Isaac making incomprehensible decisions. Heartbreak and denial are understandable reactions in this situation. But as a confident, sophisticated and beautiful woman, Iris’s desperate insistence on forcing Isaac to be with her makes so little sense. Have gender politics not advanced beyond this? And what happened to good old-fashioned self-respect? As Iris grows crazier and more unhinged by the minute, taking the increasingly unsettled guy hostage, “Oh, Hi!” starts running out of steam.
Meanwhile, Isaac’s mistimed threats to seek legal advice just when he’s about to be unlocked feel even more maddeningly contrived. Obviously, anyone in their right mind would do everything in their power to free themselves first and foremost. Gordon and Lerman are two committed performers with excellent chemistry and comic timing during these scenes, and much of Gordon’s physical work as the crazy soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is genuinely impressive and funny. But the seams of Brooks’ writing show often, becoming impossible to ignore.
“Oh, Hi!” goes farther off the rails when Iris’ bestie Max (the wonderful Geraldine Viswanathan) and her boyfriend Kenny (John Reynolds) arrive to offer some help, with the latter being an especially avid “Law & Order” watcher aware of every possible legal scenario. Plausibility isn’t the most important point when such a high-concept comedy unravels in front of us. But when “Oh, Hi!” enters “Witches of Eastwick” territory, it loses the plot, turning tedious to watch.
There are some smart scenes here where Brooks shows her keenly observant eye, especially when Iris and Max discuss the modern-day phenomenon of the Brooklyn-bred “soft boys”— men who want all the good things a stable relationship brings, from sex to secure intimacy, without making a real commitment to it. But despite a really fun start, “Oh, Hi!” stops being fun as the situation escalates. If this mainstream film remains oddly watchable despite all its hiccups, credit belongs to the contributions of an alluring and immensely talented cast (especially Gordon). Still, “Oh, Hi!” eventually becomes a big Oh, No!
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