The signs are there from the jump. Mixed signs, to be sure, but signs indeed, enough to make anyone (especially the neurotic Iris) think and re-think and re-re-think everything that has transpired between her and presumed boyfriend Isaac on their very first romantic getaway (insert GIF of Bridget Jones screaming about “a minibreak meaning true love” here) before everything goes absolutely to hell and back.
In Sophie Brooks‘ winning, wise, and very funny sophomore outing “Oh, Hi!,” the devil is in the details, and the details? Well, they’re in the kind of patchwork-guessing and random sign-seeing that so many are forced to endure as they embark on the horrors of modern dating. Brooks just takes them in some delightfully daffy (and occasionally deeply scary) new directions.
Related Stories
The film opens in its middle: with a bugged-out Iris (co-writer Molly Gordon) welcoming her understandably unnerved best pal Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) into a just-creepy-enough farmhouse in the middle of the night, only to tell her, while furtively glancing upstairs, that she “did a thing.” Oh, Iris.
Brooks hurdles us back 33 hours, to a far sunnier set-up, but one still complete with plenty of signs for Iris to turn over in the hours to come.
First sign: a grinning Isaac (Logan Lerman), happily chatting away on the phone with his mom, naming Iris (Gordon) by name. By name! As in, oh, hi, Mom! Yes, Iris and I are going away for the weekend. Yes, we will have fun! You can see the calculus behind Iris’ eyes as she drives the two to an Airbnb farmhouse in upstate New York, the same kind many a loved-up would-be girlfriend (or boyfriend, these kinds of signs move freely across age, gender, whatever): his mom knows about me. How much more official can this get?
Second sign: a dazzled fruit stand sales girl, transparently flirting with Isaac while shilling her juicy red strawberries on the side of the road, beaming at him as if Iris was not standing right there. Ah, what amazing eyes you have, she trills. Oh, you too, he volleys back. As if she was not standing right there! Excuse me?
But Iris will not be deterred, and Isaac is so cute, why should she be? It’s clear to two are still in the early throes of romance — they’re both extremely giddy over sex and still learning things about each other, like which one of them is more literarily-minded, leading to an incredible recurring gag about an iconic José Saramago novel — but they do seem to click. Gordon and Lerman have delightful chemistry (what an idea for a rom-com), and it’s easy to see why Iris would be so happy in this new relationship. We’ll bite: what can possibly go wrong.
Well, look to the signs.
Brooks’ handle on the genre is obvious, and so too is her ability to subvert it, poke fun at it, send it up in style. Snappy editing from Kayla Emter and frightening-to-fizzy music from composer Steven Price ably assist in keeping things both moving rightly along and just-so keeping us on edge about what might possibly come next.
Iris and Isaac’s idyll is interrupted by the enemy of all great budding romances: the truth. Stunned to learn that her interpretation of the nature of their relationship, of this weekend, of just about everything does not line up with Isaac’s, Iris … well, she does a thing. Aided by some incredibly ill-timed “advice” from her mother (Polly Draper) and a generous dose of high-key Googling about relationship worries, Iris comes up with a good idea wrapped in incredibly mad packaging: she can get Isaac to really love her, if she just has enough time.
Luckily for Iris (and unluckily for Isaac), they’re in a secluded location for a set period of time, and she’s gonna make the most of it. Gordon’s performance is a marvel, with Iris whipping back and forth between “funny and sexy” to “genuinely terrifying” and “really kind of pathetic” at a breakneck, but always amusing, pace. Literally trapped as Isaac in Iris’ fever dream, Lerman is more than up to the task, guiding his character through his own wide range of emotions (and attendant facial expressions).
As Brooks ratchets up Iris’ nuttiness, “Oh, Hi!” slowly cedes its perspective to Isaac, snapping into focus all manner of new revelations. And just as Isaac’s take on things begins to waver, it’s time for Max and her boyfriend Kenny (John Reynolds) to appear, injecting plenty of slapstick energy into the story. The tonal shift initially jars, but repeated viewings (almost by accident, this critic has seen the film three times) speak to Brooks’ overall vision, a comedy with lots of bite that knows its influences well.
Love? Well, if you know how to read the signs, it can really hurt. Iris might do her damndest to make Isaac love her, but “Oh, Hi!” doesn’t need to try nearly as hard to make it a romantic, comedic, and insightful winner.
Grade: B+
Sony Pictures Classics will release “Oh, Hi!” in theaters on Friday, July 25.
