Oh, Hi adds a little bondage and witchcraft to the weekend getaway motif. Molly Gordon’s Iris is winsome as a woman whose passion for love is equal to his current denial that they are anything other than a no-strings-attached twosome.
Logan Lerman’s Isaac is the perfect foil for Gordon’s romantic illusions. He is charming, evasive and thoroughly mixed up male human being. Lerman’s and Gordon’s chemistry bonds Oh, Hi to and beyond the bed, and the chains. Intimacy is constantly colliding with confession, leading to dceptions, connivance, and Stephen King Misery comic situations.
The plot involves Iris cuffing Isaac to the bed, assorted, love potions and memory loss incantations that are absurd and moving. The director Sophie Brooks shepherds all this with a light, playful touch that allows the surreal and comic to coexist without interfering with the romantic reality. The highlight is the dream sequence where Iris sings Island in the streams to an enchanted Isaac,
The farmhouse bears the metaphoric burdens for all the fear, loathing, romantic contradictions, and reconciliations. By the time the final confessions of love and I’ll try to do better come, Oh, Hi has earned its emotional release. The relationship that comes after the illusions is realistic, honest and genuine.
Oh, Hi is a film that celebrates the mess of romance with affection and wit. It is comic without cruelty, romantic without sentimentality, and daring without losing its heart.
Letter grade B+. Streaming on Netflix.
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