The funny-tragic rom-com ‘Oh, Hi!' starts blissful, ends toxic

Los Angeles Times

7 days ago

The high-stakes romantic comedy 'Oh, Hi!' is a backhanded compliment to lotharios like Rudolph Valentino, James Bond and 'The Wolf of Wall Street's' Jordan Belfort. At least those frank seducers wanted quickies. Fickle Isaac (Logan Lerman) strings women along pretending to be a sweetheart. Four months into dating Iris (a bubbly Molly Gordon), he whisks the smitten girl on a weekend getaway to a farmhouse in fictional High Falls with quaint Shaker furniture and a closet of erotic accessories. There, at the worst possible time, Isaac blurts he doesn't want to commit. His kindness is cruel — and Iris wants payback.
The first act is all infatuation with director Sophie Brooks and cinematographer Conor Murphy delighting in scenes of superficial bliss: sunflowers, pretty clouds, Adirondack chairs nestled together just so. The intention is to slap each shot with the Instagram hashtag #couplegoals. Then Brooks shifts into the light thriller she's teased since the opening notes of heaving, scratchy violins.
Iris and Isaac haven't noticed any red flags. But there are cautionary pink ones. Iris is visibly insecure about Isaac's conversations with other women, including the strawberry peddler who coos that he has 'soft hands,' and his mother, who dials him up to crack inside jokes. Iris' smile is too tense; Isaac's comes too smoothly, even when sharing a memory of catching his father cheating on his mom.
A pop psychologist would say witnessing his dad's infidelity triggered Isaac's fear of commitment. (Brian de Palma experienced nearly the same thing and turned into, well, Brian de Palma.) But Isaac is a literature guy, toting around a paperback of Nobel Prize winner José Saramago's 'Blindness' to underscore that neither one of them sees their mismatch clearly. Isaac just wants the girlfriend experience without the weight of expectations. Iris' dewy eyes are all expectation.
The plot finagles a way to tether them to the bedroom until they get closer to being on the same page. (It involves several pairs of handcuffs.) The mechanics of this hostage situation are hard to buy. You have to keep reminding yourself that she's drunk and impulsive while he, rather nonsensically, holds his feelings inside until the exact moment he should shut up and save himself.
Partners like Isaac have been edging toward a clinical diagnosis: alexithymia, or the inability to describe your emotions. It's the people around the patient who suffer the symptoms. Iris' best friend Max (Geraldine Viswanathan, an always welcome sight) offers a blunter verdict: 'Classic softboy,' she laments. 'They trick you, they get you — they're the worst.'
And they're not new, although they do seem to be mushrooming. Cinema has warned us about variations of this breed of harmless-looking heartbreaker for generations — it was Woody Allen's entire persona. The female version is Julia Roberts' 'Runaway Bride,' so mealy about her own feelings that she ditches four grooms at the altar. This month, you can also watch the pretty good new psychological horror film 'Bury Me When I'm Dead,' which trips over an even higher narrative hurdle by telling its story through the POV of its wishy-washy lead.
Passivity can be as impossible to capture on camera as the moon. Movie scripts, like vexed suitors, struggle to pin down a vaporous lover. Here, Isaac attempts to outrun criticism by sighing, 'The issue is that I treated you too well?'
Lerman is the former teen dreamboat of 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' and the 'Percy Jackson' series, and he's interesting casting. Girls from the ages of 11 to 15 idealize pinups like him who have been packaged as handsome, innocuous and flat. Accordingly, he plays Isaac shallowly so that Iris can fill him in with her own projections. If he gave the character a personality, we'd get distracted wondering whether the couple could work out. I'm noncommittal myself on whether Lerman delivers a serviceable performance or a strong one. But his Isaac excels at spotting what people want and reflecting it back. He's unnervingly good at faking charm, like a fox that smooth-talks its way out of a trap.
It's a bigger issue that the film doesn't have a handle on Iris' character. One moment, she's an empathetic audience stand-in, the next she's Kathy Bates in 'Misery.' Despite those bumps, Gordon, who shares a story credit with Brooks, is a nimble, likable comedian. Capitalizing on her theater-kid energy, she executes a talent-show dance number to capture Isaac's heart. (Check out her comedy 'Theater Camp,' which Gordon co-wrote and co-directed.) 'Oh, Hi!' sides more with her than him, which is understandable given the women who made it and its intended rom-com audience. Yet that allegiance puts it uncomfortably close to hissing, 'Look what you made me do.'
One smart critique launched by the film (albeit underdeveloped) is that no one wants to confront Iris with the truth. Her mother (Polly Draper) comes with her own baggage, advising her daughter, 'Sometimes men don't know what's best for them.' Meanwhile, the internet's you-go-girl optimists placate Iris with flimsy assurances that men always pull away before they commit. As for Max, she suggests killing Isaac, then claims she's kidding. Is she? Probably. But both she and Iris are so accustomed to disguising their wants with humor that it's hard for them — and us — to know what they genuinely think.
Max's own boyfriend, the mellow and supportive Kenny (John Reynolds), may as well be wearing a T-shirt that says, 'Not All Bedmates.' Otherwise, the only other mildly memorable role is a prurient neighbor played by David Cross, who is really just there to lend the indie production his star clout.
Pointedly and inevitably, our leads regress into Mars-Venus caricatures — he's the jerk, she's the psycho — as Brooks vents her frustration that gender tropes haven't evolved. And not for lack of trying. For months, Isaac has whipped up homemade scallop dinners, while Iris patiently played it cool. The film's core question is: How have men and women worked so hard to overcome toxic archetypes and still wound up stuck here?
There's no satisfying answer to that. Brooks can merely offer this flawed pair more kindness than they grant each other (or themselves). Which makes 'Oh, Hi!' a pleasant if perilous date night film. Having spent an enjoyable evening with it myself, I have to admit: I like the movie fine, but I'm not in love.