Written by Alivia Stoner
In a time when the dating world has become filled with ‘situationships’ and social media feeds spouting arbitrary advice like the “three-month rule,” comes Oh, Hi! (2025), an equally witty and dark sophomore film from the mind of Sophie Brooks.
The film sets off with a luscious countryside car ride; it is here that viewers are introduced to the charming lead duo, with Molly Gordon starring as Iris and Logan Lerman as Isaac. Despite what looks like a dreamy start to a weekend getaway, there are undertones of wandering eyes and straying charms.
Despite a romantic start filled with dips in the lake, reading together, and a late-night candlelit dinner. Fears come to the surface as Isaac reveals issues with his parents’ relationship and how that affected his childhood.Iris talks about how she wanted to stab her ex-boyfriend of many years when he was breaking up with her and as the layers peel back, trust begins to crack.
However, the scene really paints two people getting to know each other in the early stages of what seems to be a relationship. That is until things descend into madness after the pair decide to restrain each other during intimacy. While Isaac is still cuffed to the bed, it is revealed that he has been openly seeing other people, and Iris thought that they were exclusive.
A fight quickly begins to unravel, and so does Iris’s peace as she begins to want to fix things. After a hectic night of Googling and listening to podcasts, she decides to leave him restrained for 24 hours in order to try to fix the connection and convince him to stay together. It is when Iris realizes that she can be arrested for holding him hostage that the panic sets in.
Isaac himself has a different level of panic after believing that she is violent; as he scrambles for the keys, he makes a quick decision to play along, and what ensues is hours of conversation and nodding along.
The director brilliantly balances the darkness of this topic with comedy and moments of true human imperfection. From topics like colonoscopies, to wanting to perform childhood dance recitals in the midst of conversation, there is a real open quality brought to the material at hand.
Paired with beautiful cinematography rich in color and not to mention every Indie DIY lover’s dream film soundtrack, the film has an undeniable charm as an indie release. Although the film brings up topics of the desire for connection and the normalization of situationships in today’s dating landscape through hyperbole, it speaks to a true frustration that people of this generation have felt.
According to statistics from YouGov, 39% of US adults and 50% of 18-34-year-olds have been in a situationship. But what’s the cause? Research suggests this trend of dating habits stems from a need for less pressure and commitment. However, it typically leads to even more anxiety if that is not proven enough by Iris turning to witchcraft with her best friend to try to fix the situation.
The project also does a beautiful job of highlighting friendships with women and the shared connection women have between their struggles with men; this is seen as Iris’s ride-or-die friend Max comes to help her even at any cost.
The performances of both Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds brought an undeniable light to the film, as Reynolds’ character Kenny is able to act as not only a voice of reason but also as a sort of companion for Isaac’s character over their stay at the cabin that night.
What really sells some of this chaos are the performances from both leads, as we truly see Lerman and Gordon at some of their best. It’s undeniable the way their chemistry is able to bounce off of each other even in their most heated moments of the film.
In some of the final moments of the film, audiences get a flashback to the pair’s first date. It would have been great to see more of this past and how it had evolved to this point for both characters; instead, a lot of the film stayed rooted in the present.
For a very small budget, they did an incredible job of making the space the film was shot in feel used to the best of its ability and kept viewers engaged with not only beautiful shots of the house but also tracking shots and some fun underwater views, not to mention a disgustingly made breakfast that was shot perfectly.
Brooks does both sides justice as you begin to see how people can end up in this position of wanting different things yet still craving connection with each other and how that really comes to be.
A lot of these miscommunications come down to fear, but in very different forms. Overall the film serves as a very refreshing commentary on an issue that many young adults are dealing with without making one side villainized.
The film serves as a lighthearted reminder to even those that have been the most jaded or heartbroken through situations like these that at the end of the day a lot of these issues can stem from anxieties that run deep within a person’s past, and despite a harsh mirror to these realities being held up, there are also moments of heart filled with simple discussions of books and movies.
As the film comes to a close with the pair being able to go their separate ways on amicable terms, Isaac is able to acknowledge that Iris is not crazy, and she’s able to also acknowledge that she took things too far when things went wrong. After all, it was an unforgettable weekend, and they will always have Ohhi.
Brooks was able to reignite the romance genre by flipping expectations and the formulaic elements of the genre on their head. The credits don’t roll with a perfect ending and the relationship that either wanted. Instead, it’s an acknowledgment of how they’ve both made mistakes and are clearly only at the beginning of their journeys into the rest of their lives.
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