There’s a turning point in the new movie Oh, Hi!, when a man is handcuffed to a bed and a woman decides she’s doing what she wants.
This is Isaac (Logan Lerman) and Iris (Molly Gordon), a “soft boy” and a “crazy woman”. Like much of Sophie Brooks’ sophomore feature, this scene is fuelled by Iris’ burning desire to love and be loved in return. It’s this openhearted, unbridled honesty that leads Isaac to label her an unhinged, “crazy,” and desperate woman.
But Gordon and Brooks poke and prod at the archetype, offering a different perspective. Iris’ actions may spiral out of control, yet a pure longing and genuine love underscore her behavior, and I’m willing to defend her!
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
The rom-com, which investigates the pitfalls of modern dating culture, follows the couple’s first romantic getaway. Isaac and Iris get all dressed up to dine on the patio by candlelight, open up about their first heartbreak and splash around in the nearby lake. It’s a dream for Iris, who is a romantic at heart and utterly enamored by Isaac.
When they venture to the bedroom, they find a pair of handcuffs in a box of kinky sex toys. Iris is restrained first, but freaks out, and they reverse the roles, with Isaac’s ankles and wrists cuffed to the bedposts. Later, in a post-orgasm haze, Iris blissfully sighs that she’s so glad their first couple getaway is so easygoing.
Isaac’s face drops.
Here, the film takes a left turn; Iris thought they’d been exclusively dating for four months, but Isaac had no idea and had been sleeping with other women. They’re not just on different pages; they’re in different books.
Iris is horrified as she processes that her boyfriend has never been her boyfriend, while the man in question remains cuffed to the bed. “Why would you bring me here? Why would you spend all day acting like my boyfriend? You pursued me!” Iris breathlessly exclaims. Isaac’s response is her last straw: “You’re being kinda crazy right now! Calm down!” Shockingly, it doesn’t work. Iris storms out of the room, the key to the handcuffs out of his reach.
The “crazy woman” is overly emotional; she acts irrationally, deranged, and hysterically. The diagnosis, more often than not, is used to silence women for expressing the full range of emotions that come with being human. Case in point: Isaac, who has led Iris on, flips the accusation on her, calling her “crazy” for her rightful confusion, heartbreak and fury that he has viewed their relationship as a situationship.
Iris resorts to an online “relationship guru” blog, which gives her the idea to spend 12 hours with Isaac (still handcuffed), convinced that if he knew her, truly knew her, he would commit to the relationship. Driven solely by her all-consuming hunger, a desire to make the fantasy in her head a reality, she loses sight of the fact that you should never have to convince anyone to love you.
There’s also the question of how we got here.
It’s clear Isaac has been selfish with Iris’ vulnerability; he’s gaslit and led her on for months, clearly seeing how infatuated she is with him. However, after 12 hours chained up, Isaac loses the plot, yelling at Iris: “Uncuff me right now, you psycho!”
The declaration only escalates things, not in his favour. Iris isn’t willing to let him give up on them so easily. She declares that if she were to uncuff him and he goes to leave, she’d have the desire to stab him. The hyperbolic threat silences Isaac, but the intensity of her feelings reflects how much she cared for him.
Co-written by Brooks and Gordon, inspired by The Worst Person in the World and Scenes from a Marriage—and I would add with timely resonance to Lena Dunham’s Too Much—Oh, Hi’s sensitive handling of these characters allows the “crazy woman” to have depth.
Speaking to IndieWire about the writing process, Brooks shared: “It was really illuminating about the human experience, and there’s something really interesting to me about exploring those darker thoughts that we have in quiet moments when we’re alone, and what happens if someone acts on those.”
Gordon’s charismatic performance grounds Iris, making it easy to root for her, evoking pathos when the man opposite her is relentless with the “crazy” and “psycho” name-calling. Additionally, her raw hope to love wholeheartedly is where this misogynistic notion of desperation is rooted.
If shame is not laced into the DNA of longing and yearning, then you’re sure to face accusations of neediness and desperation elsewhere. Iris showcases a deep vulnerability, baring her soul and laying her heart bare. Matching Gordon’s intense performance are Brooks’ intimately zoomed-in frames that capture every quirk of the eyebrow, every confused blink, and even the smallest frowns. This closeness only exacerbates Iris’s panic as she realizes how far she’s gone in the pursuit of connection.
To want is something pure, and what Iris craves is distinctly human. “All I want is to feel deeply and get into the nitty gritty of a relationship, be vulnerable, and have love,” she confesses.
Sure, Iris goes a bit too far here, but there’s something to be said about her no-holds-barred approach to romance. She’s brave in the face of rejection, willing to put herself out there. Also, she operates with complete transparency; there’s no question about her lust, a communication favour that Isaac did not return.
In the hours this pair spend together, their conversations range from heartfelt to heated. The rom-com montage is repurposed with dance routines, Isaac peeing in a cup, and Iris dressing up like she’s pregnant, soundtracked to Mario’s “Let Me Love You.”
After all of this, Iris’s infatuation remains: “Why do I still want him? I haven’t liked someone in so long. He said all these things, and I told myself this story that we were falling in love. I just wanted it to be true.”
Iris deserves someone who will love her for who she is, not a toned-down version of herself. Like all the “crazy women” who came before her, she is not desperate for wanting this reciprocal affection, nor is she mad for trusting her heart. Because, really, what’s so crazy about a girl just wanting to be loved?
