Oh, Hi (2025) – Nice To Watch You

Released: 25th July
Seen: 2nd November

One of my personal favourite film performances in cinema history is by Glenn Close in the movie Fatal Attraction. The story of a woman who has a one-night stand with a married man who then goes absolutely insane and basically tears his life apart because she refuses to be ignored is captivating and that performance has stuck with me since the moment I first saw it. Indeed the entire genre of a scorned lover seeking revenge on their partner is so wickedly fascinating that any time you have a couple breaking up and one of them deciding to make sure the other knows how much it hurts, I am there with a beaming excited grin so you can imagine my joy reading the plot of Oh, Hi and expecting a modern take on the idea. Well, if this is the modern take… ok, it’s fine, I guess I don’t need to see any boiled bunnies, but something of that level would be nice.

Oh, Hi follows a young couple on a little retreat together. After dating for 4 months, Iris (Molly Gordon) and her boyfriend Isaac (Logan Lerman) have rented out a charming little place out in the country where they can just unwind, relax and have kinky sex in a brand new location. To help with that kinky sex, turns out the place that they’ve rented happens to have a few sex toys hidden about the place including a couple of restraints for the bed and so, in a moment of spontaneity, Isaac offers to be restrained to the bed for part of their kinktastic fun… and then, just before he’s due to be untied, reveals he never thought of him and Iris as an exclusive couple and that they were just two 20-somethings having fun. Iris, however, thought they were not only exclusive but in a happy and long term relationship. Of course, she could handle this through a calm conversation, but instead decides to leave Isaac tied to the bed for 12 hours so he has enough time to realise he actually does love her. So begins the elaborate, farcical attempt to force a man to have feelings for someone who is currently kidnapping him.

Oh, Hi really does start pretty well, making sure to take the time to set up Isaac and Iris as this fun couple who clearly have a ton of chemistry and passion that makes them a perfect little pair. You really want the best for both of them, there is undeniably something special that exists between them that makes you want to spend plenty of time with them. The way the two leads bounce off each other is truly spectacular and manages to make even the most awkward moments feel sweet and special. Not only do they have a pretty great rapport together, they also really match well with the best friend characters, Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Kenny (John Reynolds), who are introduced later on in the film and when it’s just the four of them in a scene together, you can feel months of history underneath their weird, awkward interactions.

That weird, awkward feeling happens because most of the film features Isaac strapped to a bed while completely naked (covered with a sheet for modesty purposes), and that idea is pretty well set up in a believable way. Sure, you might not agree with why it’s being done (god, I hope you don’t, red flag if you do), but you can follow the logic behind it. It creates a real sense of tension and allows for some pretty hilarious, awkward comedic moments, like what will they do when the time comes for Isaac to have to pee, which ends in a pretty funny gag that lets you know a little more about Iris’ state of mind. The build up that happens as they try to work out what the hell they’re going to do now that they’re in this situation is actually pretty well-paced, it builds pretty well and has a lot of genuinely funny moments. For a solid hour of the film, the absurdity level goes up more and more until eventually it hits an absolute crescendo… and then crashes headfirst into a tree.

The major issue Oh, Hi has is that it can’t keep going up forever, eventually it has to find a way to end the story and the way that it’s chosen is a copout. There will not be any spoilers here about what happens, but it’s the kind of ending that just gets everyone off the hook and doesn’t really feel earned. It’s almost like they just knew they needed to stop the film at about 90 minutes and instead of working out how to do it based on what happened throughout the film, just ended it with the story equivalent of turning to the camera and going “That’s all folks”, it’s about as anti-climactic as you could get in a film like this.

In fact, Oh, Hi has a kind of annoying habit of just not following through with the ideas that it sets up in a way that’s really exciting. Hell, there’s an entire character, played by David Cross no less, who really has no real purpose in the narrative other than to tell someone where someone else is… that’s it, his job could be replaced by a character yelling a little louder. You almost expect him to be a major element of the film, maybe turn up as a potential obstacle near the climax, but nope, he doesn’t factor in at all and considering he’s played by the biggest name in the cast it’s kind of wild that he has no purpose in the plot.

Oh, Hi has a fair bit of fun with its premise and, for a large chunk of the film, manages to keep elevating the insanity in a way that makes it worth a little bit of time, but it stumbles at the end so hard that it honestly hurts. It’s often said that a film is usually judged by the final few minutes since that’s what the audience will remember as they head out the door and this film really doesn’t leave a lot to walk out on, which is a shame because right up until it trips and falls on its face it has a lot of fun with its simple premise.