What if Misery was about a manic pixie dream girl? That’s the surface-level premise of the Oh, Hi! trailer, which turns Stephen King horror into millennial comedy courtesy of writer-director Sophie Brooks. The Bear‘s Molly Gordon stars as the idealized “cool girl” girlfriend, who brings fresh flowers to a weekend getaway and likes to christen new spaces by having sex. But even that won’t protect her from the dreaded truth that he’s just not that into you.
“Iris has met her perfect guy, Isaac, and is enjoying their first romantic getaway together — what could go wrong?” the Oh, Hi! synopsis reads. “This clever and charmingly odd dark comedy takes on the highs and lows of modern dating and the ways it makes us all a little crazy.”
Oh, Hi! premiered at the Sundance and is inspired by Brooks’ experience re-entering the dating pool after getting out of a long-term relationship in her late 20s. “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,” the filmmaker wrote in an essay for Variety. “The likelihood of different interpretations of conversations and situations leads to newer ways and reasons that women can be called crazy and men can be called assholes.”
Isaac (Logan Lerman) does seem kind of like an asshole in the Oh, Hi! trailer—after all, who goes on a private weekend getaway with someone they’re not even really in a relationship with? Nevertheless, Iris leaving him cuffed to the bed is a bit of an extreme reaction. (Hey, better Misery than Gerald’s Game.) If she isn’t able to win Isaac over (or give him the kind of head injury that will cause amnesia), she recognizes she’ll probably have to go to jail. But at least she’ll have company in the form of her accomplices Geraldine Viswanathan (Drive-Away Dolls) and John Reynolds (Search Party). Oh, Hi! hits theaters July 25.
