Vague Visages’ Oh, Hi! review contains minor spoilers. Sophie Brooks’ 2025 movie features Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman and Geraldine Viswanathan. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

In 2016, Vague Visages contributor Angelica Jade Bastién (now with Vulture) wrote a tremendous essay series, “The Feminine Grotesque,” about female madness in cinema and American culture. The 10 pieces cover films from the 1940s (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers), 60s (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?), 80s (The Last Seduction) and 2010s (The Witch, Queen of Earth), with the writer offering the perspective of a young Black woman breaking down her personal experiences, both in life itself and with movies. Nearly a decade later, a post-COVID film like Sophie Brooks’ Oh, Hi! (2025) doesn’t quite align with the selected titles of “The Feminine Grotesque,” but it does indeed focus on the insecurities of a blindly optimistic woman who doesn’t understand why she’s perceived as mentally unstable by her new romantic partner. Oh, Hi! effectively addresses post-COVID paranoia, from both male and female perspectives, yet it’s essentially a character study of a young millennial who uses humor to cope with unresolved personal issues.

Oh, Hi! stars Molly Gordon (The Bear) as Iris, a charismatic jokester who travels to a farmhouse in High Falls, New York with her unofficial boyfriend of four months, Isaac (Logan Lerman, perhaps best known for headlining the 2012 coming-of-age drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower). The film’s title derives from a first act sign misreading as the protagonists reach their destination, and Brooks stays consistent with her play-on-words humor throughout the 94-minute movie, working from an original story by Gordon. As Iris settles into the farmhouse for a romantic weekend, she flippantly talks about “an insane urge to stab” — a moment that sets up the film’s inciting incident as Gordon’s character enjoys some bedroom/bondage sex with Isaac before learning that he’s not actually interested in a committed relationship. And so Iris plans to change his mind by keeping him tied up for 12 hours while demonstrating her unique personality. Plenty of jokes land well via Gordon’s physical comedy and Lerman’s priceless reactions in Oh, Hi!, yet Brooks recycles various themes from her first feature, The Boy Downstairs (2017), in which a young woman’s behavior gets interpreted as “weird” by her new neighbor/ex-boyfriend. This time around, the writer-director trades a “weird woman” premise for a “crazy woman” concept, as Iris vows to prove that she’s not actually one of those mad women that the aforementioned Bastién analyzes in Vague Visages’ “The Feminine Grotesque” essay series.

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Oh, Hi! positions Gordon as the next Lena Dunham, Greta Gerwig or maybe — to quote Will Ferrell’s Frank from Old School (2003) — “something really cool that I don’t even know about.” The Venice, California native has already co-written, co-directed and co-headlined her own feature, Theater Camp (2023), and now seems ready to make a big leap in mainstream cinema, specifically in the romantic comedy genre that desperately needs a jump-start. Gordon delivers numerous one-liners in Oh, Hi! with charm and excellent comedic timing, and she also shows off a sexy side, evidenced by a first act bedroom scene in which the “movie lady” Iris tries to both entertain and please her bookworm boy toy — the nephew of a U.S. senator.

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Brooks and cinematographer Conor Murphy don’t get too flashy with their visuals, as Oh, Hi! is somewhat of a chamber piece production, but they keep the focus on Gordon’s Iris via numerous close-up visuals that accentuate the actress’ Amanda Seyfriend-like eyes and A-level physical comedy. If The Boy Downstairs features a strong female lead and a decent male co-star in various big city locations, Oh, Hi! boasts two undeniable stars and priorities their lessons in chemistry through a contained farmhouse setting. And so the dialogue pops and Kayla Emter’s editing keeps things moving along nicely, even if Brooks seems invested in replicating the writing styles of both Dunham (Girls) and Gerwig (2012’s Frances Ha), à la “quirky girl just can’t grow up and find true love but still has lots of fun.” The overall character development is indeed strong, however, and both Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers, 2018) and John Reynolds (Search Party, 2016-22) have scene-stealing moments as Iris’ concerned friends, Max and Kenny, respectively. The supporting characters’ awkward yet empathetic reactions at once create audience sympathy for Isaac while humanizing Iris as her razzle-dazzle behavior backfires from scene to scene.

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In RogerEbert.com’s review of Oh, Hi!, film critic Zachary Lee writes that the movie “thrives in the ways it embodies quiet, shattering devastation.” And maybe that’s what separates Brooks from contemporaries like Dunham and Gerwig, as there’s an edge to her writing and handling of adult material. With that said, Oh, Hi! will undoubtedly appeal to Gen Z audiences with its good-looking leads, provocative comedy and dark spin on the battle of the sexes premise.

Oh, Hi! released theatrically on July 25, 2025.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film essays at Vague Visages.

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