“Oh, Hi!” Has a Lock on Millennial Dating Fears
Anyone dating in the 2020s knows that things are bleak. Dating apps were supposed to be the solution to this. They were supposed to allow singles to connect because it’s hard to meet people. All these technological creations were intended to solve our loneliness epidemic, but the opposite is becoming true. Dating in the 21st century is a horror. These apps have essentially trained users to find something wrong with the person they’re talking to because the next match, always the next match, is the right one. These modern dating horrors are the subject of writer/director Sophie Brooks’ Oh, Hi!. The story, co-created with actor/producer Molly Gordon, will certainly hit a little too close to home for those who have found themselves in a situationship and can’t find their way out.
Iris (Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman) have been seeing each other for four months and are en route to their first weekend away together. They’ve booked a rental farmhouse in upstate New York and are excited at the prospect of a trip out of the city. Things are progressing as one would expect for a couple still in their honeymoon phase, but that’s just the thing. One of them doesn’t believe they’re in a relationship. Isaac insists that the past four months have been casual and Iris has just misunderstood. Iris, unwilling to let things go, decides she won’t unlock the handcuffs that are keeping Isaac chained to the bed. Over the course of 40-odd hours, Iris’ plan to win him over goes even more off the rails.
courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, Molly Gordon is the funniest actor in Hollywood. She stole scenes in Shiva Baby, Booksmart, and You People. Her directorial debut, Theater Camp, is outrageously fun. She’s the kind of comedic actor who can split your sides with laughter and make your heart break in the same breath. Despite Gordon having a hand in the story of Oh, Hi!, the film doesn’t use her to her full potential. If any movie called for her ability to shift tones from serious to screwball comedy, it would be this one. Gordon is fairly restrained, though her performance might only feel that way to those more familiar with her filmography. She’s still very much the glue that holds Oh, Hi! together. Her chemistry with Lerman is delightful and sparkling. They easily sell the breathlessness of a new relationship, or non-relationship in this case.
courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Oh, Hi! has an absurd premise. One must suspend belief to go along for the ride, and it’s a fun ride for a while, but then what. This is a film about the realities of dating in the 21st century, where every break-up is essentially boiled down to the “asshole” and the “crazy” one. As they tell their friends about the end of the relationship, they use words like this to explain away their own shortcomings and mistakes. In reality, very rarely does it just end because one person is an outrageous asshole or a crazy person. More often than not, it’s somewhere in the middle. Just as people can bring out the best in each other, they can bring out the worst too. Oh, Hi! is at its most fulfilling when it rides the line of screwball and sincerity. The concerns raised by the characters in the film are playing out in the lives of millions of young adults around the world. The premise creates an endlessly comedic outlet to channel the absurdity that comes from dating, but that can only take it so far. There’s an anxious, scared heart looking for love in Oh, Hi! that is desperate to be known. Of course it’s mortifying and exposing to let someone into your life, but that’s what most of us are looking for.
Oh, Hi! is millennial dating fears taken to an extreme, but isn’t sure where to go from there. Much like this year’s Materialists, Oh, Hi! is looking for an answer it doesn’t have. Gordon, Lerman, and the later-in-the-film additions of Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds are a dream cast, a collection of young talent who are an utter joy together on the screen. Like the famous line from Casablanca, Oh, Hi! will always have its bizarro farmhouse in upstate New York, even if its love story won’t go down in the history books like Bogart and Bergman’s.
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