Oh, Hi! (2025) — when rom-com miscommunication goes off the rails.
A full movie blog: cast, who the story centers on, how it performed, the niche it occupies, and a deep 1,500-word look at what the film does (and doesn’t).
Quick facts / the short read.
Title: Oh, Hi! (2025)
Director / Writer: Sophie Brooks.
Stars: Molly Gordon (Iris), Logan Lerman (Isaac), with Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds, David Cross and others in supporting roles.
Premiere: World premiere at Sundance Film Festival, January 26, 2025; festival run included Tribeca and Miami.
Theatrical release: Limited U.S. release July 25, 2025 via Sony Pictures Classics.
Runtime: ~95 minutes.
Reported gross: approximately $2 million (limited theatrical run).
How many cast members — who’s in it?
On paper Oh, Hi! is compact and ensemble-light. The credited principal players you’ll see in promotional materials and reviews are roughly a dozen actors who carry most of the screen time:
- Molly Gordon — Iris (lead).
- Logan Lerman — Isaac (lead).
- Geraldine Viswanathan — Max (friend/confidante).
- John Reynolds — Kenny (friend).
- David Cross — Steve (neighbor).
- Plus several supporting players and bit roles that round out the weekend getaway: cops, servers, a hotel clerk, etc.
If you count every credited extra and cameo in the closing credits that number expands, but narratively the film lives or dies on the chemistry of four or five principal faces — Iris, Isaac, Max, Kenny, and a handful of comic foil parts.
Who is the “means character” — who does the story really follow?
This is Molly Gordon’s movie. Iris is the emotional axis and “means character”: the story is filtered through her expectations, hurt, and escalating attempts to secure the relationship she wants. Isaac’s point of view is limited (he spends much of the film physically constrained), and the comedy/horror of the setup largely stems from Iris’s choices — from hurt and misunderstanding to an extreme attempt at persuasion. The power/ethics of the plot (a romantic hostage farce that tilts into dark comedy) are defined by Iris’s emotional logic.
Box collection / how did it perform?
Oh, Hi! ran the independent-festival circuit and later received a modest, limited theatrical rollout. By the usual Hollywood arithmetic it’s small: reported worldwide gross sits around $2 million, which reflects a niche festival crowd, targeted theatrical windows, and later transactional/streaming revenues rather than a wide multiplex roll-out. Financial success for a title like this is measured differently than tentpoles — critical buzz, festival traction, and eventual streaming/licensing deals count as much as box office.
What niche does Oh, Hi! occupy?
This film sits in a narrow, contemporary rom-com subcategory:
- Indie rom-com / dark comedy hybrid — it mixes relationship realism and awkwardness with escalating, slightly surreal escalation (one sequence owes a direct debt to Misery-style confinement, but played for commentary more than horror).
- Dating-anxiety art-house — it interrogates contemporary dating rituals, emotional labor, and the gendered expectations of attachment.
- Festival-first romantic experiment — toys with tone and genre (laughs, cringe, then a moral wobble), the sort of small film that plays Sundance and then looks for a smart distributor.
Deep dive — plot, themes, craft, performances, and verdict.
The elevator summary (no major spoilers)
Iris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman) go away for what should be a romantic weekend. The trip starts promisingly — sparks, intimacy, the usual romantic shorthand — then derails when Isaac casually signals he’s not ready for the kind of commitment Iris assumed. Hurt and panic mount. In the movie’s bold (and intentionally provocative) move, Iris physically restrains Isaac in a desperate bid to force him to reckon with what she believes they could be. The premise sounds absurd and provocative — and the film leans into that absurdity to ask: what happens when love, rejection, and entitlement collide?
Tone and the tonal gamble
Oh, Hi! is tonal work you either admire or wince at. Sophie Brooks (director) treads a narrows path — close to tender rom-com territory in the first act then sliding toward dark farce in the second. The film wants you to laugh, squirm, think, and then feel morally unsettled. For some viewers, that tonal elasticity is refreshing; it reframes the rom-com as a genre willing to interrogate coercion, consent, and attachment. For others, it’s an uncomfortable mismatch: comedy plus ethically fraught plot mechanics equals an uneasy watch. Reviews have been exactly split along that fault line. The movie’s success depends on whether you accept the premise as satirical commentary or reject it as mean-spirited miscalculation.
Performances — Gordon anchors, Lerman reacts
Molly Gordon carries the film. She’s expert at that mix of officiousness and vulnerability that makes Iris legible: funny in small bits, crushing when she’s raw. Logan Lerman does restrained work in a role that is physically constrained; many of his scenes are reactive, which is a tall ask for an actor. Critics and festival viewers have praised their chemistry (some did not — RogerEbert’s writeup notes moments where spark felt missing), but the reality is that the film is built around Gordon’s emotional trajectory and Lerman’s willingness to be the foil. Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds provide supporting comic warmth and modern rom-com texture. David Cross pops up as a bit of a cranky neighbor — useful for comedic punctuation.
Direction and screenplay — sharp setup, slippery payoff
Sophie Brooks and co-writer Molly Gordon set an undeniably clever premise that riffs on genre expectations: what if the worst-case scenario of unrequited affect was literalized? The first hour is strong: awkward intimacy, believable small talk, the anatomy of hurt. The movie’s problem — and source of argument among critics — is that once the central act (the restraint / hostage set piece) happens, the story must balance comedy, critique, and plausibility. Some viewers admired the film’s gall and saw it as a modern, darkly feminist satire. Others felt the movie paddled into farce and lost its opportunity to dig morally deeper. The dialogue is sharp at times and clunky at others; the tonal shifts make the screenplay’s choices feel like a deliberate experiment rather than naturalistic evolution.
Themes — consent, modern dating, and the “crazy woman” trope
There’s a lot going on thematically:
- Consent and coercion. By physically restraining Isaac, Iris turns the film into a direct meditation on whether emotional coercion ever becomes a form of violence. The film forces the audience to ask: if longing and desperation push someone into a morally dubious act, does that mitigate or exacerbate culpability? Brooks doesn’t give easy answers, which is why people argue about whether the movie is daring or tone-deaf.
- Gendered double standards. The premise upends a familiar cultural trope — the “crazy woman” in pursuit — by centering empathy on Iris before letting consequences land. The film examines why women are often socially narrated as hysterical and why men are criticized less for emotional unavailability.
- Attachment economics. The script plays with the idea that modern relationships are partly transactional and risk-averse; Iris’s extreme action is framed as an anxiety response to the precarious modern dating economy.
- Comedy as survival. Much of the movie’s humor is a coping shell; laughter becomes a way to make unbearable vulnerability manageable.
Set pieces & memorable moments
There are sequences that critics repeatedly flag: an early sex-game scene that pivots the film into moral territory; the “locked down” stretch where ingenuity and dark humor compete; and a late scene in which the farcical energy goes full tilt and the film reveals what it intends to say. Some moments are payoffs: sharply written beats, odd comedic delights, and a few surprisingly tender exchanges that remind you the characters are human, not mere vehicles for a thought experiment. Other moments feel like the film is overplaying the gag, leaning into implausibility for laughs that undercut the emotional stakes.
Critical reception — the split
Reviews are mixed in a way that’s instructive. The Hollywood Reporter and some festival coverage praised the film’s bravery and the actors’ chemistry; others (notably The Guardian and RogerEbert) criticized the movie for losing emotional credibility and devolving into farce. Audience reactions have mirrored that split: some viewers hail it as a clever deconstruction of dating norms; others call it unbalanced or even uncomfortable. In aggregate the film seems to have found its audience — festivalgoers and cinephiles who like risky rom-com experiments — but it was never destined to be a mainstream crowd-pleaser.
Box office context & afterlife
With a reported gross near $2 million, Oh, Hi! is in the “indie modest” range. That’s appropriate — Sundance titles rarely aim for blockbuster returns. The life of this film is in reviews, streaming availability (digital rentals, VOD), and cultural conversation about its premise. For a director like Sophie Brooks and a star like Molly Gordon, festival cachet and critics’ attention are career currency; theatrical dollars are secondary. Sony Pictures Classics’ limited release strategy aimed to place the film where adult audiences and awards voters could discover it, rather than saturate multiplexes.
Final verdict — should you watch it?
Yes — if you like rom-coms that throw a hand grenade into the genre to see what kind of mess comes out. Oh, Hi! is for people who enjoy tonal risk, morally thorny comedy, and performance-first storytelling. Molly Gordon’s work is worth the ticket alone, and Logan Lerman’s constrained, reactive performance is admirable.
Skip it if you want feel-good rom-com certainty, unambiguous moral framing, or a plot that treats consent as a punchline. The film invites argument — and if you prefer escape over provocation, this one will likely frustrate.
