Posted on February 9th, 2026.

In the annals of cinematic romance, we’ve seen grand gestures involving boomboxes, airport chases, and rain-soaked confessions. Sophie Brooks’ Oh, Hi! introduces a new, albeit legally questionable, metric for devotion: the literal hostage situation.

While the film plays as a neon-soaked, darkly comedic romp, beneath the surface lies a textbook case study of Attachment Theory pushed to its most unhinged extreme.

So let’s step into the therapist’s office and unpack the delulu (delusional) and the avoidant in our favorite emotionally unsafe quartet.

Iris: The Anxious-Preoccupied “Architect”

Iris isn’t just a woman scorned; she’s a woman who has built a cathedral of expectations on a foundation of sand. Clinically speaking, Iris exhibits an Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment Style.

• The Internal Working Model
  
  Iris experiences herself as worthy only if she is chosen. When Isaac hesitates around labels, it doesn’t merely hurt, it threatens her sense of self.
  
  
• The Coercive Shift
  
  The handcuffs are not a twist; they’re a metaphor with a Home Depot receipt. Iris’s anxiety flips into hyper-activation: if she can just keep Isaac physically present, cuffed to the headboard, no less, she can force the realization that she is The One.
  
  
• Performance as Defense
  
  Throughout the film, Iris cycles through personas: domestic goddess, manic pixie dream girl, intellectual equal. This is identity diffusion in real time, attempting to unlock Isaac’s heart by becoming whoever she thinks he wants, while literally holding the key to his shackles.

Isaac: The “Soft Boy” Avoidant

Isaac is the modern dating ecosystem’s most dangerous predator precisely because he doesn’t look like one. He is a Dismissive-Avoidant masquerading as a romantic lead.

• The Deactivation Strategy
  Isaac offers 90% of a relationship, weekend trips, emotional intimacy, perfectly cooked scallops, while withholding the final 10%: commitment. This allows him to maintain the illusion of freedom without sacrificing companionship.

• The Paradox of Intimacy
  When the relationship becomes “real” first metaphorically, then literally Isaac’s nervous system shuts down. His eerie calm while being held hostage isn’t shock; it’s practiced emotional detachment. He checked out long before the handcuffs clicked shut.

Max & Kenny: Folie à Plusieurs (Madness for Four)

Perhaps the most fascinating psychological element of Oh, Hi!is not the crime itself, but the social ecosystem that enables it.

• The Echo Chamber Effect
  In a healthy environment, a friend tells you to call the police. In a folie à plusieurs (shared delusion), friends validate the fantasy. Max, armed with her own romantic disillusionment, reframes Iris’s felony as a “profound feminist act.”
  
• The Ritualistic Pivot
  The memory-erasing ritual marks the shift from reality testing to magical thinking. Rather than confront the legal and emotional consequences of the present, the group attempts to rewrite the past.

The Verdict: A “Ball and Chain” Meta-Commentary

The film quietly asks: Is a situationship just a hostage crisis with better lighting?

By the final credits, it’s clear Iris and Isaac are mirror images of the same dysfunction, one uses proximity to feel safe, the other uses distance. Neither possesses the vulnerability required for a true “High Falls” level of love.

The “Grounding the Falls” Wellness Plan

Patient: Iris [Redacted]

Diagnosis: Severe Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment with brief reactive psychosis.

Goal: Transition from Capturing Love to Cultivating Self.

Phase 1: Deconstructing the Limerence Loop

Limerence is an involuntary state of romantic obsession that feels like destiny but behaves like addiction.

• Intervention: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focused on interrupting narrative spirals.
• Goal: Recognize that Isaac wasn’t a soulmate lost, he was a projection screen for unmet needs.

Phase 2: Redefining “The Sign”

The broken Oh, Hi! sign symbolizes Iris’s tendency toward pareidolia, finding meaning where none exists.

• Intervention: Narrative Therapy. Rewrite the origin story.
• Lesson: Internal validation is the only sign that doesn’t flicker when the neon dies.

Phase 3: Social Detox (The “Max & Kenny” Clause)

Healing requires replacing radical enabling with radical candor.

• Intervention: Establish relational boundaries.
• Goal: Build community with securely attached people who resolve conflict without zip ties.

Iris’s New Relationship “Green Flags” Checklist:

The Old "Isaac" Trait

Ambiguity: "I don't like labels."

Performance: Intimacy only on vacations.

Withdrawal: Shuts down during conflict.

The New "Secure" Trait

Clarity: "I am looking for a committed partner."

Consistency: Intimacy in the mundane/tuesday nights.

Presence: Stays in the room (voluntarily) to talk.

A Note on the Symbolism of the Falls

High Falls represents the apex of Iris’s delusion, the belief that the drop would thrill rather than destroy. True healing lives on the plateau. In psychology, the “high” is often just dopamine and cortisol; wellness is the steady, boring, non-criminal baseline.

Closing Argument: The Situationship Defense

Case No. 2025-CR-OH-HI

Defense Attorney: Marcus V. Sterling, Esq.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution wants you to see a kidnapper. I ask you instead to examine the vibe.

We live in the age of ghosting, where a man can cook you a three-course meal, compare your eyes to midnight moss, and disappear three days later claiming he ‘isn’t looking for anything serious.’ That is the real crime.

Those handcuffs? Not restraints, physical manifestations of a boundaries discussion.

Is it kidnapping if there’s artisanal French toast? False imprisonment if the linens are high-thread-count? No. This was aggressive hosting.

My client didn’t want his wallet. She wanted his vulnerability.

And if wanting emotional clarity is a felony, then who among us is truly free?

I ask for a verdict of Not Guilty by Reason of Gaslighting.”

The Jury’s Reaction (The Twist)

The defense rests … not on the law … but on the fact that three jurors have also been situationship-ed recently and are nodding in silent, haunted agreement.

Conclusion: When Love Becomes a Crime Scene

Oh, Hi! isn’t really about a hostage situation.

It’s about what happens when modern dating removes all guardrails and calls the wreckage “chemistry.”

Iris didn’t wake up wanting to commit a felony. She woke up wanting clarity. Wanting to know where she stood. Wanting the safety that used to come from mutual intention but now has to be extracted through late-night conversations, interpretive texting, and, apparently, industrial-strength restraints.

And Isaac didn’t lie, exactly. He just practiced the most socially acceptable form of emotional disappearance: giving enough intimacy to bond, but never enough structure to be accountable.

That’s the uncomfortable truth the film exposes. When commitment becomes taboo, anxiety does the negotiating. When boundaries stay unspoken, they reappear in distorted forms. When no one is allowed to ask, “What are we?” without sounding needy, the nervous system finds other, more dramatic ways to demand an answer.

The genius of Oh, Hi! is that it refuses to let us pretend this is just Iris’s pathology. The handcuffs may be hers, but the conditions that made them feel necessary belong to the culture. We live in a dating landscape where emotional access is abundant, but emotional responsibility is optional, and the gap between the two is where people lose their minds.

In that sense, the film isn’t a cautionary tale about “crazy women” or “emotionally unavailable men.” It’s a satire about what happens when attachment needs are treated like personal flaws instead of human wiring.

No one wins here. Not the anxious, not the avoidant, not the friends who enable the fantasy instead of interrupting it. The only thing that loses decisively is the idea that love should feel like captivity, strategy, or survival.

Real intimacy doesn’t require leverage.

Real desire doesn’t need confinement.

And real love never asks you to surrender your dignity just to stay in the room.

If Oh, Hi! leaves you unsettled, that’s the point. It’s not asking you to laugh at Iris, it’s asking you to notice how close the rest of us already are to the edge.

And maybe, just maybe, to choose a different ending before someone reaches for the cuffs.