By: Lana K. Wilson-Combs
With its darkly funny tone and offbeat charm,
"Oh, Hi!" is a quirky addition to the romantic dramedy canon.
Directed by
Sophie Brooks ("The Boy Downstairs") and co-written with
Molly Gordon (TV's "The Bear"), who also gives a memorable turn in the lead role, this indie film takes its time unfolding and surprisingly wins you over.
Gordon plays Iris, a free-spirited young woman who believes she may have finally found her soulmate in her boyfriend Isaac (a terrific Logan Lerman (TV's "Only Murders in the Building," and "We Were the Lucky Ones"). After four blissful months together, Iris is thrilled about their weekend getaway to a cozy lake house in O' High Falls, a location whose name offers a winking nod to the film's title.
Things start out great for Iris and Isaac. They're driving through the countryside, singing along with the radio to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream." It's the kind of moment that feels lifted from a rom-com montage.
A roadside fruit stand detour leads to them buying a ton of strawberries and they endure awkward flirting from the older woman running the stand, who clearly takes a liking to Isaac.
Their destination is a nice, cozy lake house, where the two eagerly explore every room until they stumble upon something unexpected in the bedroom closet: a stash of BDSM gear.
Curious and emboldened, they decide to experiment. Iris volunteers to be restrained first but quickly discovers she's not all that into it. Instead, she handcuffs Isaac, who gamely plays along--at least until she starts interrogating him about the state of their relationship. That's when Isaac, in an act of ill-timed honesty, admits he's seeing other women and isn't looking for anything serious.
Iris is blindsided.
In a panic-fueled spiral, she convinces herself that if they just had more time together, he might realize what they have is real. So instead of untying him, she keeps him cuffed, not for a couple of hours, but for the duration of their stay. Isaac's initial bemusement turns to frustration, then fear, as it becomes clear that no one can hear his cries for help.
And Iris? She is teetering somewhere between heartbreak and delusion.
Rather than fully lean into the darker psychological territory the setup invites, co-writers Brooks and Gordon pivot in the second half to a more whimsical--and less effective--subplot involving Iris's best friend Max (Geraldine Viswanathan, "Thunderbolts") and Max's boyfriend Kenny (John Reynolds, "Horizon One"). Their absurd plan to try and erase Isaac's memory with some amateur witchcraft feels like it belongs to another film entirely, diluting the emotional stakes and undercutting the tension.
That tonal shift nearly derails "Oh, Hi!" but committed performances from Gordon and Lerman help keep it grounded.
Gordon deftly walks the line between sympathetic and unhinged, while Lerman brings a surprising amount of heart and vulnerability to a role that could have easily slipped into caricature.
Though a bit off-kilter at times in its execution, "Oh, Hi!" remains an interesting and chaotic meditation on modern love, denial, and the limits of romantic idealism.
Editor's Note: Be sure to catch my N2Entertainment.net movie talk segment on the
Kitty O'Neal Show Fridays now at 5:17 p.m. and 6:47 p.m. on radio station KFBK 93.1 FM and 1530 AM.
Watch This Trailer For
"OH, HI!"
Lana K. Wilson-Combs is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA), The American Film Institute (AFI), and a Nominating Committee Voting Member for the NAACP Image Awards.
