Oh, Hi!
I saw one person on Letterboxd liken Sophie Brooks’s “Oh, Hi!” to “Misery,” and while there’s no doubt some of that film’s DNA in this hilarious dark comedy, I think that misses the point. “Misery” is about a parasocial relationship an obsessive fan has with an author’s work. In the screenplay by Brooks, from a story she wrote with lead actress Molly Gordon, the reason for Iris’s impromptu imprisonment of Issac (Logan Lerman) is more personal, and definitely goes to some unexpected places. I enjoyed where it went.
Iris and Issac are on the way to a small town for a weekend getaway when the film begins. They’ve been together for four months, and it’s got the feeling of a romantic weekend. After ending up having to get a lot of strawberries at a stand, they get to their home for the weekend, and make themselves at home. A neighbor (David Cross) warns them against having sex in the lake (they were just making out), and they look to have some fun that night with some toys they find around the house they’re staying. With Issac handcuffed, they begin to talk, and in doing so, Iris realizes that Issac doesn’t have the same expectations for their relationship she did. Panicked, she tries to change that.
From there, it’s best to avoid learning as much as possible. Part of the pleasure of “Oh, Hi!” is in watching how Iris goes to greater and greater lengths to try and get Issac on the same page, and when he throws out the idea that she is kidnapping him, it forces her to enlist her best friend, Max (Geraldine Viswanathan), and her boyfriend, Kenny (John Reynolds), who came along for the ride. The film is, in tone, a dark comedy about a young woman finding a way out of a stressful situation, but thematically, it’s about what happens when gaps in communication find two people in different places in a relationship. When they agreed to their arrangement in the early days of the relationship, we find that what Iris thought vs. what Issac heard are considerably different, and it’s easy to understand Iris’s emotional reaction. At the same time, however, we do feel some empathy for Issac, even if his revelation makes him the bad guy. The longer Iris keeps him cuffed to the bed, the more we feel her desperation, and his desire to get away. The lengths she seems to want to go in order to make this work are, well, a bit out of left field.
Movies like “Oh, Hi!” work because of the way the characters and situation are written, and how the actors deliver on their end. Everything is firing on all cylinders in this film, which- more or less- takes place in one location, and uses that space effectively for its story. And all of the performances are terrific, starting with Gordon and Lerman, who navigate the shifting emotional landscape of the film effectively, and more than earn their final scene together. This was a delightful comedy of mistakes that has a strong heart.
