Oh, Hi! is set in the scenic hamlet of High Falls in upstate New York. The joke is that the welcome sign is broken in such a way that it reads “O High Falls”.
Molly Gordon (who also co-wrote and produced the picture, alongside director Sophie Brooks) plays Iris, while Logan Lerman plays Isaac. The two of them have been dating for about four months and they’ve rented a farmhouse in High Falls for their first vacation as a couple. Trouble is, there’s something… off about them. Yes, it’s one of those movies in which weird little eccentricities keep stacking up until the big reveal.
The good news is, the big reveal happens at the end of the first act, so we don’t have to wait too long. The bad news is, the big reveal happens while Isaac is naked and handcuffed to the bed. (These two can’t keep their hands off each other, that’s another of those little red flags I was alluding to earlier.)
See, it turns out these two were never quite on the same page with regard to what they wanted romantically. Isaac lets slip that he was never interested in a long-term committed relationship, while that’s the only thing Iris wants. So Iris gets the bright idea of keeping him cuffed to the bed, trying to force/persuade him into falling in love with her. This goes about as well as you’d expect.
Right off the bat, there’s a major problem with this battle of the sexes: The male “participant” spends half the movie naked and handcuffed to a bed, with no way of getting help or backup. Though Isaac does attempt everything in his power to free himself and shift the situation in his favor, he’s not a genius or a superhuman. He can’t really do much.
The upshot is that Iris is given far more direct power over the plot. Iris gets to go online to find a hundred pseudo-psychological quacks who will say whatever she wants to hear. Iris gets to make up all manner of excuses and experiments, maintaining her delusion that she can somehow force and/or persuade Isaac to see that the two of them are soul mates, all with absolute impunity. Also, she’s the one literally holding a guy captive. This unavoidably means that the man will get all audience sympathy.
Right up until Isaac says or does some stupid dickish thing and loses sympathy all over again.
Pretty much the only thing that Iris and Isaac have in common is that they both hate breakups. They both hate being single and they both hate trying their luck with the dating pool. The difference is that Isaac doesn’t like breaking someone else’s heart while Iris doesn’t like getting her heart broken.
Isaac is highly pessimistic about the viability of love in the long term, while Iris believes in everlasting twoo wuv to a psychotic degree. Isaac avoids heartbreak by keeping things casual, getting just close enough to enjoy sex and romance while maintaining just enough distance that he can dip out when times get rough. Iris would rather avoid heartbreak by finding Mr. Right and never letting go of him.
Both of these people are toxic and catastrophically incompatible with each other. But they’re not evil, just stupid. Even as bad as she is, Iris is mostly guilty because her mind has been warped by so many bad influences and unrealistic expectations. And while Iris is unquestionably the more guilty party in this whole fiasco, bad communication is a two-way street. The both of them — most especially Isaac — could’ve avoided all of this if they had been more clear with their intentions at the start. Or at least before they decided that playing with a stranger’s BDSM gear was a good idea. (Seriously, nobody should try that without safe words and rock-solid trust.)
Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the comic relief side characters. Geraldine Viswanathan obligingly shows up at the halfway point in the role of Iris’ best friend, alongside John Reynolds in the role of Viswanathan’s boyfriend. While the both of them are quite humorous, they’re far more valuable for an objective point of view and commentary for how fucked-up this whole situation is. We also get a stable and loving romantic relationship, which makes for good thematic contrast. The only other side character of note is Steve, the neighbor, who’s only really notable because he’s played by David Cross.
The film is darkly comical, powered by genuine comedic talents and poignant insights into modern dating. But there’s a huge problem, and it’s inherent in the premise of the film: The male lead is literally being held captive. The conflict in this film is pathetically one-sided. Hell, one side is physically incapable of doing anything, even after Iris comes to the realization that she’s committed a felony. And she can’t risk setting Isaac free because she and Isaac both have thoroughly proven themselves to be stupid and untrustworthy.
The plot hits a plateau, and it gets there quickly. The filmmakers wrote themselves into a corner by virtue of the premise, and it takes some pathetically bogus bullshit to get them out. What’s worse, it all leads to a climax that falls pitifully short of all the craziness we’ve already sat through, which is of course backwards.
Oh, Hi! had everything it needed on paper. The cast is solid and the humor is funny, but the film is at its strongest in the more dramatic moments when it slows down and contemplates the nature of romance in the modern age. Unfortunately, while the premise is both ingenious and hilarious, it’s not enough to sustain a feature-length movie. This movie is aggressively padded, stuck spinning its wheels through something like two-thirds of the runtime with the realization that there’s nowhere left to go and no plausible way to resolve this situation.
I’m confident that this could’ve been amazing as a short film or an online sketch. As a full-length feature, this is tough to recommend. Especially since Lerman was also in Twinless, another 2025 romantic dramedy that did a far better job addressing many of these same topics.