Eight years after The Boy Downstairs, her feature directorial debut starring Zosia Mamet and Matthew Shear, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, Sophie Brooks is back with her sharply funny, Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman–fronted sophomore effort, Oh, Hi!—and we’ve got your first look.
A big hit at Sundance earlier this year, Oh, Hi! centers on Iris (Gordon) and Isaac (Lerman), who, four months into seeing each other, take a romantic trip into the bucolic countryside. There, they croon along to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, buy great heaps of fresh berries, swim in the local creek, show-dance under the stars, and have exciting vacation sex—that is, until the couple learn that they have decidedly different understandings of just what kind of “couple” they actually are.
Throw in a leering next-door neighbor (David Cross); the intriguing contents of a locked closet; and appearances from two of Iris’s friends (one of whom is cousins with…a witch?), and you’ve got a twisty romantic comedy that owes as much to Nicole Holofcener or Noah Baumbach as it does to Stephen King.
“After getting out of a serious relationship in my late 20s, I re-entered the world of dating with relative shock and horror,” Brooks wrote in a recent essay for Variety, explaining Oh, Hi!’s origins. “Now, in this current modern world of dating and hooking up, where relationships can take so many forms and there are so many options and choices for labels and intentions, the romantic world is rife with possibilities of miscommunication.” Together with Gordon, who is a close friend, and Brooks’s brother and producer, David, she developed the film’s story during lockdown, shooting it in upstate New York last year.
Ahead of Oh, Hi!’s July 25 theatrical release, see exclusive stills from the film, featuring Gordon, Lerman, Geraldine Viswanathan (Drive-Away Dolls), and John Reynolds (Search Party), below.
