Producers: David Brooks, Dan Clifton, Julie Waters, Sophie Brooks and Molly Gordon   Director: Sophie Brooks   Screenplay: Sophie Brooks   Cast: Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds, David Cross, Polly Draper, Desmin Borges, Diana Irvine, Jimmy Gary Jr. and Jessie Nelson   Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Grade: C

Logan Lerman now joins the short list of actors who have spent most of a movie tied up on a bed.  The best known is surely James Caan in the excellent “Misery” (1990).  But there was also Zach Galligan in the wretched “All Tied Up” (1993).  “Oh, Hi!” falls somewhere between them, but, sadly, closer to the latter.

Sophie Brooks’s movie is a comedy about commitment, or lack thereof.  The director’s co-writer Molly Gordon stars as Iris, who’s introduced—after an opening close-up in which she admits she’s done something bad—driving with Isaac (Lerman), her boyfriend of some months, to a rustic farmhouse they’ve rented in High Falls for a weekend getaway from the city.  Singing lustily as they listen to the radio, they seem a perfect couple, even after an accident at a strawberry stand, where Isaac flirts a bit with the saleslady, leaves them with entirely too many boxes of the fruit.

Their initial time at the house, and the nearby lake, is idyllic, despite the intervention of solemnly dour neighbor Steven (David Cross), who objects to their open display of affection on the pier until he finds out they’re renters, not local interlopers.  They enjoy a candlelit dinner on the patio and pepper one another with getting-to-know-you-better questions that reveal some differences—he likes to read books, but she prefers watching movies.

The biggest difference—a chasm, really—isn’t revealed until they repair to the bedroom, where they find some sex paraphernalia in the well-stocked closet.  Isaac suggests trying a bit of bondage for fun, and Iris agrees—so long as he’s the one who gets shackled.  Only after he’s secured does Iris learn that while she thought their relationship an exclusive one, he didn’t and has been dating other women.  Worse, he’s not at all interested in monogamy or marriage. 

She’s shocked and angry at his admission and, being a bit nutty as soon becomes apparent, decides to try to change his mind.  The attempt is made easy by the fact that he’s been dumb enough to tell her the truth before she’s unlocked his wrists and ankles, and when she declares her refusal to do so in order to persuade him they’re meant for each other, he makes matters worse by suggesting he might get the law involved.  Despite the best efforts of the two talented stars the movie deteriorates from there. 

Iris makes matters worse by calling her best friend Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) to come to the farm so that they can work out what to do, and Max unexpectedly brings along her boyfriend Kenny (John Reynolds).  He turns out to be an avid viewer of TV crime shows, more than eager to point out all the legal trouble Iris has gotten herself into.  Neither conversation with her mother (Polly Draper) nor advice from online influencer Sandra James (Jessie Nelson) has prepared Iris for the mess she now finds herself in.

So what do Iris, Max and Kenny decide on as a possible way out?  Witchcraft, of course!  They’ll prepare a magical potion that will make Isaac forget everything that’s happened.  Of course, it doesn’t work.

“Oh, Hi!” is buoyed to some extent by a terrific cast.  Gordon goes the unhinged route without becoming Annie Wilkes mad, and Lerman is fine as a shallow guy who’s dumbfounded by her intensity.  The picture also has comic aces in the vivacious Viswanathan and the droll Reynolds, while Cross works wonders with his few interjections. 

But it’s sabotaged by the script, which starts out smart but grows dumber and dumber with each passing moment.  It does leave one with a smile, maybe even a laugh, when movie-loving Iris sends injured book-lover Isaac off to the hospital with the line “We’ll always have Paris!” and he responds with an incredulous “What?”  But by that time it’s a lost cause.

There’s some compensation in the lovely New York locations shot in their glory by cinematographer Conor Murphy, and April Lasky’s production design is nice, as is Steven Price’s score.  Editor Kayla M. Emter brings things in at a chipper ninety-four minutes.

But you shouldn’t commit your hard-earned cash to so misguided a commentary on commitment.  Better to buy some strawberries instead.