Rarely has a movie’s sync budget been so poorly spent as in the case of Oh, Hi!
Sophie Brooks’s twisty sophomore outing slathers its first act with a succession of big, often recognizable songs. “Islands in the Stream” (Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers), “Sexy to Someone” (Clairo), “The Source” (Merrell Fankhauser)…and that’s just the first 15 minutes. The songs set an idyllic scene, as presumably intended, but the soundtrack is so unsubtle that Brooks undercuts her own opportunity to establish a tone for this material.
That becomes increasingly a problem as the story lurches into improbable situations, and we don’t know what to make of these characters and their choices. Later montages don’t help, repeatedly trading potent ambiguity for silly shenanigans. The premise has potential, if the movie could build a world and stay there, but it’s as if Brooks and co-writer Molly Gordon keep getting distracted.
Iris (Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman) are off on a romantic weekend retreat, oozing with new relationship energy despite intimations that Isaac may not be done playing the field. Discovering some bondage supplies in the bedroom of their rental house, they decide to get kinky — but the cuffs go on more easily than they come off.
The plot’s key development makes a huge ask of the audience: believing that a reasonable, sympathetic character would take an extreme action that seems very unlikely to produce the desired result. The ostensible reasoning is there in the script, but it falls to Brooks to help viewers know what to make of the material. Is this meant to be a dark character study? A goofy rom-com? A surprise thriller?
Again and again, Oh, Hi! trades substance for light gags, yet refuses to veer into screwball territory. A third-act apotheosis makes clear that we’re meant to feel for these people, but why did Iris make French toast using only her bare hands?
Additional characters are introduced, but they just add layers of confusion. No sooner are legal stakes introduced than the story is off on another flight of fancy. The script again tells us, on paper, why witchcraft is coming into play — but we still don’t know what to make of these characters. Is the plan really something they would all go along with as prison time becomes a possibility?
Whether or not this is a result of Gordon being both co-writer and star, Oh, Hi! is entirely too concerned with getting us to like Iris. Her character is something of a manic pixie dream girl for Isaac, and the idea that “soft boy” Isaac is going to have to decide just how much manic he can handle holds promise.
The film, though, takes neither the risk of delving into darkness, in which case either lead might become unsympathetic; or pivoting into farce, in which case we might have to let go of the presumption that these are relatable, three-dimensional characters. Instead, Oh, Hi! just burbles along for an hour and a half, never resolving the disconnect between the affable characters and their ludicrous situation.
At the end, we’re essentially informed that the characters have come to understand new things about themselves. We really have to take their word for it, because we don’t understand a thing.
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