SCREEN | Falling for 'Oh, Hi!' – Molly Gordon Kidnaps A Twisted Romance

"I'm glad I'm not ten percent crazier."

Sony Pictures Classics / Mongrel Media

Brooklyn-based, sophomore feature filmmaker Sophie Brooks takes contemporary dating to extreme lengths in her twisted romantic comedy, Oh, Hi!, starring it girl Molly Gordon (also a producer and co-story writer) as a young woman desperate to keep her new beau (Logan Lerman) while on an initially sexy weekend trip getaway (think Misery). Things escalate from there in the offbeat, single-location romance gone wrong.

It's a film that relies entirely on the chemistry and charisma of its lead actors, particularly Gordon, who must strike a delicate balance of (not totally) crazy but kind and more or less sweet-natured. When her Iris realizes Lerman's Isaac sees no future between them beyond anything casual or sexual, she reacts poorly and refuses to let him leave their rental house until he gives their relationship a genuine chance. To keep the farce going, Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds, as Gordon's friends, the seemingly perfect couple, enter the picture for moral support to heighten the tricky romantic situation.

Oh, Hi! balances its satirical romance with genuinely common millennial concerns about struggling to find someone special in a messy dating landscape. Gordon grounds the difficult material about forcing yourself on someone while maintaining a sympathetic demeanour. Everything about the doomed "situationship" ultimately unfolds in a satisfying way that both stretches and maintains an earnest semblance of credulity.


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