(L–R) Molly Gordon, Sophie Brooks, and Logan Lerman attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of “Oh, Hi!” at Eccles Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by George Pimentel/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Lucy Spicer
Picture this: a weekend trip to upstate New York, just you and that special someone. You’ve rented a gorgeous house with a scenic lake nearby. The two of you spend a relaxing afternoon together, going for a swim and talking about the things you love. Outside, the stars twinkle up above as you’re presented with homemade dinner — scallops — before sharing a moonlit dance. Sounds like a successful couple’s trip, right?
Well, that’s what Iris thought, too. Until Isaac reveals that he doesn’t consider them to be a couple.
How would you react in this situation? Iris gets… frustrated. Her emotions run the gamut before she settles on a decision: She just needs Isaac to get to know her better so that he can see how great they could be together. She resolves to achieve this over the course of the following day. And Isaac has no choice but to agree, since he happens to be tied to the bed.
Written and directed by Sophie Brooks, Oh, Hi! screens to abundant audience laughter on January 26 at Eccles Theatre in Park City as part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres section. The project was four and a half years in the making, reveals Brooks in her introduction to the film. “This came out of COVID dread, and now I’m living a Sundance dream,” she says.
Brooks developed the story with friend and collaborator Molly Gordon (Theater Camp, 2023 Sundance Film Festival), who plays Iris as both endearingly vulnerable and comically unhinged. “Don’t we all just want to force someone to have a conversation with us sometimes?” Gordon asks the audience at the film’s post-premiere Q&A. “We just wanted to make something that felt kind of fucked up and funny and make people feel seen.” And while the film is undeniably funny, its premise is a response to the very real frustrations that accompany modern dating, which has evolved — or devolved — to include terms like “situationship” and assumptions that one has to “play it cool” until no one can be sure how anyone is feeling anymore.
“I think there’s this thing where when a man is looking for love, it’s really sweet and romantic. And when a woman is looking for love, it’s desperate and scary,” says Brooks during the Q&A. “And I think that’s really unfair and interesting. And I also think, as someone who has gone on a lot of dates in New York City, you can really simplify complex feelings so quickly, and as we see in the film, men can be labeled ‘assholes’ and women can be labeled ‘crazy,’” she continues. “I think we were excited to lean into that trope of the ‘crazy’ woman and poke fun at it and poke fun at ourselves.”
Logan Lerman (Shirley, 2020 Sundance Film Festival), who plays the disarmingly charming Isaac, says the on-set experience was a lot of fun, despite the fact that he spent much of the shoot physically restrained. “It was challenging for me, yeah. I was, you know, limited,” he says, to the crowd’s delight.
“Logan came on last year and changed the game for us,” adds Gordon. “It takes an incredible man to do this role and be tied up for an entire film.” Two more talented comedic performers, Geraldine Viswanathan (Cat Person, 2023 Sundance Film Festival) and John Reynolds (Save Yourselves!, 2020 Sundance Film Festival), round out the film’s cast as Max, Iris’ devoted-to-a-fault best friend, and Kenny, Max’s mild-mannered boyfriend.
“Yeah, we came in about halfway through [the shoot] and brought the energy,” drawls Reynolds amid audience laughter. “We just boosted morale.”
When asked what dating advice Brooks would offer to Iris in hindsight, the filmmaker’s response is a genuine one that clears the haze of her main character’s humorously twisted antics. “You should never have to convince someone to like you.”
