WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Oh, Hi!
Logan Lerman is no stranger to the coming-of-age love story, but the narrative journey he goes on in Oh, Hi! is something else. The shy and reserved traits of The Perks of Being a Wallflower are traded in for franticism and frustration, as Lerman’s Isaac spends the bulk of Oh, Hi! chained to an AirBnb bed by his girlfriend situationship.
That strikethrough distinction is why those cuffs remain fastened тιԍнт on Isaac. After some playful bondage, Isaac remarks to Iris (Molly Gordon) that they are just “having fun,” which takes his relationship-seeking partner by extreme surprise, so much so that she refuses to release him. Isaac manages to escape by the end but sprains his ankle while fleeing, leading to him crying out to Iris for help. Iris calls him an ambulance, and the two go on their way.
ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley caught up with Oh, Hi! director Sophie Brooks to get insight on what the future holds for Isaac and Iris after his ankle recovery, as well as what made Lerman and Gordon the perfect actors to take on this unorthodox pair.
There Isn’t Much Hope For An Iris & Isaac Future
“I think that they probably are not meant to be…”
Don’t hold your breath for Isaac and Iris to find each other again.
When asked if there was hope for Oh, Hi!‘s contentious leading characters to pursue a relationship in the future, Brooks dismissed the idea.
“I don’t think so,” Brooks told ScreenRant. “I think that they probably are not meant to be, and that maybe in another moment, if this hadn’t happened, they would be the right match. I think they could probably get a drink once a year and have a laugh at a dive bar.”
Iris and Isaac’s falling out is much more than just being chained for an extended amount of time. Iris uses the circumstance to try and convince Isaac to fully commit to dating her, which only pushes him away further. Brooks elaborated that several things have to go right for two people to find each other, and despite Iris and Isaac checking several boxes, one crucial box was left empty.
“I think choosing a person is a combination of compatibility, love, attraction, chemistry, and also timing.”
“These people have gone through something that I think they’ve both grown from and will go on to find other people,” Brooks continued. “But I think probably too much has happened for them to find their way back to each other.”
Logan Lerman Nailed Brooks’s Multi-Dimensional Goals For Isaac
“He just brings a beautiful level of sincerity…”
That aspect of “timing” is especially difficult to nail in the dating culture of 2025. Most viewers likely haven’t kidnapped their partners with bondage chains, but several can relate to the idea of not being on the same page with their partners when it comes to endgame goals. And while it’s easy to villify the half of a situationship that wants something casual, the reality is they are not always a bad person.
That’s the case with Isaac. He’s not a traditional player in the sense of having one night stands and sending the “you up?” texts at 2 AM, but he is sapping all the luxuries of a relationship without embracing the exclusivity and responsibility.
“He was never going to be one note, and he was never going to be the a–hole, which is kind of what I think could have happened if the wrong person was in it,” Brooks said of Lerman’s performance. “[Logan] just brings a beautiful level of sincerity, but also is really, really funny and has such a delightful spontaneity to his acting. He’s such a deep, thoughtful man and actor, and he really cares deeply about his craft, but he’s also really down to play and be silly. I think that combination of things made him perfect for the role.”
Lerman’s perspective on Isaac is a bit more black and white. While he understands Isaac’s head space, he has a pretty clear view on what he’s missing out on.
“He’s f–ked up,” Lerman said of Isaac. “Isaac is not at all accepting a good thing, accepting the love. He needs to work his s–t out. He needs to figure it out because clearly he’s in such a great thing with Iris at the beginning of this movie and is just too scared to commit to it for reasons that audiences will hopefully understand him better by the end of it.”
Brooks sought out Lerman, but knew her film’s lead would be Gordon from the jump. Brooks and Gordon developed Oh, Hi! alongside each other during the pandemic, pulling from their own dating experiences when crafting the larger themes of the narrative.
“There’s a lot of us in each other,” Gordon said of Iris. “I think the biggest difference is that Sophie is way more hopeful than I am, and I think Iris wears her heart on her sleeve and is a hopeless romantic, and I could be a little bit more cynical, but so really wanted to make sure that we were putting out a more hopeful energy into the world than my kind of a cynical nature.”
Oh, Hi! is currently in theaters.
Source: ScreenRant Plus
