How Oh, Hi! Finds The Humanity In Millennial Misery
Director Sophie Brooks breaks down the double standards that inspired her romantic thriller.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An infatuated couple embarks on a weekend getaway, their first vacation as a couple. Everything’s going well — there’s plenty of flirtation, a sensual dip in a lake, and even some kinky lovemaking after dinner — until our romantic hero reveals that he doesn’t see himself in a couple at all. His scorned not-girlfriend resolves to desperate measures, keeping him chained to the bedpost until he walks back every hurtful, dismissive word and agrees to date her, for real this time.
Yes, that’s a lot like the plot of Stephen King’s Misery, but with the dating scene as we know it burning to a crisp before our eyes, it could, one day, be the kind of story one of your desperate girlfriends tells after the umpteenth date gone wrong. We’re all one bad day, one maddening situationship, away from a total psychotic break. We might not hold said situationship hostage until they rethink their stance on relationships — but would it really be so bad if we did? Would it be so unjustified?
It’s that hypothetical that Oh, Hi! is eager to unpack. The off-beat romance, directed and co-written by Sophie Brooks, is the kind of darkly funny story that fits seamlessly into our current hellscape. It also offered some form of catharsis for Brooks, no stranger to a one-sided relationship herself.
Oh, Hi! began as “an idea that I could shoot during COVID: limited locations and limited actors.”
“I just feel like this movie was a fun opportunity to lean into all of the tropes about women,” Brooks tells Inverse over Zoom. “We live in a culture where a man wanting love is viewed as romantic and sweet and a woman wanting it is considered desperate.”
More than that, a woman who lashes out after rejection is typically labeled crazy. “I think that’s really unfair.”
The idea for Oh, Hi! initially came to Brooks out of necessity: The director was itching to write something new while sheltering in place in 2020. Inspired by her past relationships and society’s general phobia for single women, Brooks crafted the story quickly. Eventually, it turned into the kind of fable with sympathy for both parties: the delusional girl running toward love at full speed (Iris) and the emotionally stunted object of her affection (Isaac). As Oh, Hi! heads for its own theatrical release, Brooks sits down with Inverse to unpack the film’s origins, the subversive greatness of Logan Lerman, and building a modern-day Misery out of a millennial rom-com.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Brooks with Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman on the set of Oh, Hi!
This film came together in the thick of COVID. Walk me through how it all began — what sparked the first seed of the idea?
It was May or June of 2020, and I had another project that I’d been working on for a couple of years, and that was kind of falling apart — as so many things did during COVID. I was on the phone with my agent just expressing my fears about my career and life in the moment, and she challenged me to come up with an idea that I could shoot during COVID: limited locations and limited actors. After that phone call — I would say truly five minutes off that phone call — I came up with the seed of the idea: “A couple takes trip away together; he breaks up with her; she holds him captive.”
Molly Gordon and I have been friends for years. We were in a pod together during COVID, and I told her the idea, not fully knowing what it was, and she loved it. We decided to develop the story together. Then I wrote the first draft alone in my childhood bedroom. I was truly in a kind of cabin-fever-dream situation. I wrote the first draft in under three weeks.
How did you go about casting Isaac? What were you looking for, and why was Logan Lerman the perfect choice?
I mean, gosh, Logan is such a delight, and such a good actor. I think it was really important to have an actor who had the balance of… How do I say this correctly? Of looking like the hot guy but also being a real sweetie. Logan is. He’s gorgeous, but he also describes himself as an Iris. He’s engaged and a very devoted partner. I think having an actor who is so not a f*ckboi, it kind of freed us up, because we could really lean into everything without him overthinking it. He’s also a proper, proper actor and hadn’t done a ton of comedy before this. I think it felt like an exciting opportunity for him, and for me, to work with someone who has this really lovely commitment to his craft, but also was down to improvise and down to have fun.
In Oh, Hi!, Lerman plays the aloof Isaac — but he self-identifies as an Iris.
The big comparison for this film coming out of Sundance was “millennial Misery.” Were you actively trying to homage that story, or was it more about riffing on the stereotype of a “hysterical” woman?
I definitely watched Misery again when I was writing it, and it was something that Molly and I talked about in the story-building process. It was definitely a conscious reference, but obviously in that movie, it’s very dark, and she is truly unhinged. This is the comedic version, I think... I hope. There were other movies that I certainly kind of always call on: Classic rom-coms are something I’m eternally inspired by. I really wanted the movie to start off feeling like a rom-com and a romance, so that when we have the shift into more absurdity and comedy, it feels like we’d established them enough as a couple and as real people. For me, those filmmakers are Nora Ephron, Noah Baumbach, and Nicole Holofcener — people who really have a great grasp on character.
There’s another great homage in this to Practical Magic. Was that another intentional choice?
That was very intentional. I just feel like this movie was a fun opportunity to lean into all of the tropes about women and the idea of women being witches. There was actually a scene in the movie that we ended up having to shorten, but kind of exploring the origin of witches and — this is true — there being a correlation to single women with cats because the single women with cats weren’t dying during the plague because the cats were scaring off the rodents that were carrying the plague. And I just love the idea that the origin of witches is basically just single women and how we’re so scared of them.
Right. From the time you’re 16, everyone’s like, “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” I’m a baby. Why are you instilling this in me so early?
Yeah. I also think that we live in a culture where a man wanting love is viewed as romantic and sweet and a woman wanting it is considered desperate. I think that’s really unfair. I’m incredibly romantic and hopeful, and Iris is a very romantic person who really wants love — and I just wanted to show that you can want those things and it doesn’t make you desperate or crazy. Even if she does do crazy things, it’s not out of nowhere: He’s kind of leading her down this road to craziness. She, in her mind, is really just fighting for love.
The dysfunction of Oh, Hi! is offset by a more grounded, healthy relationship between Kenny (John Reynolds) and Max (Geraldine Viswanathan).
I really appreciated the way that you show us both perspectives from Iris and Isaac. We understand exactly where they’re coming from. Did you encounter any struggles in balancing those two perspectives?
I never wanted the film in any way to be sh*tting on men or painting a broad brush that all men are like this. I don’t think that’s true at all. Even my relationships with men who have inspired this in certain ways, I still see the humanity in them. I have so much compassion for Isaac because he is just a wounded kid like the rest of us. I think Isaac is someone who really wants love too but has certain hang-ups and certain limitations. A lot of us sabotage our own desires. It’s a very human thing to want things and also fear the things we want because if you get them, then you can lose them.
I think if you don’t have that balance in this movie, for me, it feels more shallow. I want the movie to be hyper-entertaining and funny, but I do also want it to feel relatable and honest. That’s also a huge part of wanting John Reynolds’ character, and his relationship with Geraldine’s, in the movie. He’s the most committed and in love and obsessed with his girlfriend — and he’s also a real person. There is not this one-dimensional male figure for us to fear. I hope that the takeaway is actually that we are all responsible for our own standards and walking away when something isn’t being met. And I hope that women relate to that and find what Iris finds, which is her self-worth. You should never have to convince a man to like you.
