Sundance '25: Oh, Hi!

Online dating is driving the masses insane. If you’re lucky enough to match with someone, start a conversation that doesn’t die after four messages, move said conversation off-app and schedule an actual date, you still have to contend with ghosting and miscommunication, situationships and the idea that there are dozens of other people on your phone you could be dating.

In her directorial debut Oh, Hi!—which premiered this year at Sundance Film Festival—Sophie Brooks takes the decline of modern dating and mixes it up in a frothy rom-com. Iris (Molly Gordon) is four months into dating Isaac (Logan Lerman) and they’re making that first big step: a solo vacation together. We open on the two driving to a small town outside of New York City, singing along to Islands in the Stream and acting as sickeningly cutesy as any new couple. 

Brooks perfectly sets up Isaac and Iris’s personalities in these opening scenes together, establishing their archetypal dynamic. Iris is a little insecure and a little volatile, showing a flash of jealousy when a woman hits on Isaac in front of her and hesitantly opening up to him as the night goes on. Isaac seems blissfully unaware of her idiosyncrasies and plays the perfect doting almost-boyfriend, rubbing her feet while they read together and preparing a candlelit dinner at the AirBnB he booked for them. Surrounded by the idyllic countryside—shot beautifully by Brooks—and set to contemporary indie needle drops, Iris and Isaac’s love story seems written in the stars.

But the trip gets turned on its head after a bout of kinky sex. Isaac’s still chained to the bedframe when Iris shyly says she didn’t expect their first trip as a couple to be so easy—and Isaac, looking like a butterfly pinned to a board, starts blustering about how he thought they were just casual. It’s a classic case of under-communication, culminating with Isaac telling Iris she’s “acting crazy” and Iris, in response, leaving him tied to the bed overnight. In the meantime, fueled by whiskey and despair, Iris concocts a plan based on advice from a FaceTime with her mom and an online relationship coach: she’ll keep Isaac chained to the bed for 12 hours and try to convince him they’re meant for each other.

This devolution into a Misery-style plot could feel like a farce, but Oh, Hi! is buoyed by a refreshingly funny script. Molly Gordon is simply excellent, with comedic timing that comes through in both witty one-liners and absurd scenes of interpretive dancing and helping Isaac piss into a bowl (still chained up). She also brings the emotional core of the movie to the forefront: whether it’s Iris is lashing out at Isaac or asking her mom why she can’t just find someone. Gordon’s full-dimensional portrayal makes Iris’s feelings real and relevant. The perils of dating, of opening up to another person and hoping your feelings are reciprocated, are familiar territory, but Gordon and Brooks make that potential for heartbreak feel like new ground to cover. 

Even if you accept the ridiculousness of the plot, the story does run out of steam midway through, so it’s a breath of fresh air when we’re introduced to Iris’s friends Max (Geraldine Viswanathan, most recently seen in Drive-Away Dolls) and Kenny (John Reynolds, a favorite from Search Party). Viswanathan imparts her usual dry wit to Max, who takes Iris’s debacle with Isaac in stride and suggests an act of witchcraft to prevent him from reporting them to the cops. And Reynolds is ever the affable, slightly dopey boyfriend, whose encyclopedic Law & Order knowledge clarifies the legal stakes of what is, essentially, kidnapping. The three immediately have great rapport on screen, bouncing increasingly inane ideas off each other but also showing the care they have for each other. Reynolds and Viswanathan’s easy chemistry together—something noticeably lacking between Lerman and Gordon—made me want a spinoff of just their hijinks.  

Brooks stretches her concept thin by the end of the movie—at some point you do have to wonder why no one just takes Isaac’s cuffs off, despite various justifications for Iris’s progressively bad choices. But with strong performances from Gordon, Reynolds and Viswanathan, and a conclusion that doesn’t wrap anything up with a bow or make villains out of either Iris or Isaac, Oh, Hi! is still a fresh debut.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider becoming a patron of Hyperreal Film Journal for as low as $3 a month!