I made my first feature over nine years ago, when I was in my mid 20s. We premiered “The Boy Downstairs” at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, and it was all gloriously magical. “This is how movies happen,” I thought. You write a script (it was my first feature screenplay), your first choice actress says yes (that was Zosia Mamet), and you make the movie in the same year. It’s pretty straightforward! I thought.
How sweet was she? My younger self. I sort of envy the hopeful naiveté I had at that time, with so little experience in the industry and relatively fresh out of film school, I was bushy-tailed and starry-eyed; sure I’d make my second feature the following year. Well, nine years later, I’m finally premiering my second feature at Sundance. To be honest, it feels a bit surreal.
I wrote the screenplay for “Oh, Hi!” over four and half years ago, in the thick of Covid. I was in the midst of decidedly unoriginal existential dread, about to turn 31, single, unemployed (the movie I had been working on for the last two years was falling apart) and living in my childhood bedroom after I had gotten stuck in L.A. when Covid began. I was lost.
So naturally, I called my agent. To quote “Mean Girls,” “she’s not a regular agent, she’s a cool agent.” Amanda Hymson and I have worked together since I was 26, so she’s seen me in various degrees of having my life together. I feel lucky to have her support and guidance when I’m staring in the void.
She challenged me to come up with an idea that could shoot during that time – something with limited locations and limited actors. About 5 minutes after that call, I came up with the premise for “Oh, Hi!” — a new couple take their first trip away together, but by the end of the first night, it’s clear they are not on the same page, so Iris desperately tries to convince Isaac to commit to her.
Actors Logan Lerman, Molly Gordon, John Reynolds and Geraldine Viswanathan on the set of “Oh, Hi!”
Courtesy
My ideas come from what’s going on in my life, one way or another. After getting out of a serious relationship in my late 20s, I re-entered the world of dating with relative shock and horror. I’m not an anthropologist, but I’ve gone on enough dates in New York City to know that apps have done something bizarre to our dating culture. Throughout history, women have been called “hysterical” in so many ways and for so many reasons.
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 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.
In reality, we are all just people, with our own sets of baggage, but I found this simplification of inherently complicated feelings to be rather interesting and amusing. The idea for “Oh, Hi!” came from this curiosity — leaning into those tropes, and tearing them apart. Is Iris crazy? Is Isaac an asshole? Or are they both just people who have their deepest fears triggered?
A few days after the seed of the idea came to me, I was with one of my best friends, Molly Gordon. She had also gotten stuck in L.A. and was living in her childhood home. We’d been friends for six years at that point, a decade now, and bonded over, among other things, heartbreak. I told her the idea, not quite sure what it could become, and she immediately responded to it. By the end of the day, we’d decided to do it together, and by the end of the weekend, we had come up with the story.
I then went back to my childhood bedroom and wrote the screenplay over the course of two and a half weeks. Writing as quickly as that was not normal for me, but this story felt like a great relief; a life raft during the loneliness of Covid. I sent that first draft to Molly, and then my brother/producer David Brooks, and to my delight, they liked it. With their help and insightful notes, it continued to develop and we all felt this movie was something worth making.
Sophie Brooks and Molly Gordon on the set of “Oh, Hi!”
Courtesy
Cut to Sept. 13th, 2024, the last day on set. We’ve just done 21 days of principle photography in upstate New York. And again, it is surreal. In the lead up to the shoot I had so many moments of wondering if it would actually happen: if I would actually get my dream cast (I did), if we would actually get financing (we did), or if it would all fall apart for one reason or another like it had a few times before (it didn’t).
On that day in mid September, we had made it to the end of the shoot, and it felt like a triumph. It was challenging in a million ways, as I imagine every film is — but it was also profoundly rewarding and joyful. After so many years exclusively writing, I was directing again. Molly and I dreamed up a story about a woman desperately seeking love as a way to process our own fears and poke fun at them, in the hopes that people would watch it and laugh and cringe and feel seen and entertained. We dreamed up this idea, and then we got to make it with a remarkably talented group of people.
When I made my first film, I never would have guessed it would have taken nine years to make another. But now, as I get ready to premiere at Sundance, with a film I am incredibly proud of, it really feels like it happened the way it was supposed to. I know, I know — it sounds overly saccharine, but I’m a romantic, and I owe that part of me a whole lot.
“Oh, Hi!” will premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 26.
