‘Oh, Hey!’ Filmmaker Sophie Brooks on Her Journey to Sundance

I made my first perform over 9 years previously, after I used to be in my mid 20s. We premiered “The Boy Downstairs” on the Tribeca Film Pageant in 2017, and it was all gloriously magical. “That’s how movement photos happen,” I assumed. You write a script (it was my first perform screenplay), your first different actress says positive (that was Zosia Mamet), and in addition you make the movie within the equivalent yr. It’s pretty straightforward! I assumed.

How sweet was she? My youthful self. I form of envy the hopeful naiveté I had for the time being, with so little experience inside the commerce and relatively current out of film school, I was bushy-tailed and starry-eyed; optimistic I’d make my second perform the subsequent yr. Correctly, 9 years later, I’m lastly premiering my second perform at Sundance. To be reliable, it feels a bit surreal.

I wrote the screenplay for “Oh, Hey!” over 4 and half years previously, inside the thick of Covid. I was inside the midst of decidedly unoriginal existential dread, about to indicate 31, single, unemployed (the movie I had been engaged on for the ultimate two years was falling apart) and residing in my childhood mattress room after I had gotten caught in L.A. when Covid began. I was misplaced.

So naturally, I often known as my agent. To quote “Indicate Women,” “she’s not a each day agent, she’s a cool agent.” Amanda Hymson and I’ve labored collectively since I was 26, so she’s seen me in diversified ranges of getting my life collectively. I actually really feel lucky to have her help and steering after I’m staring inside the void.

She challenged me to offer you an thought which may shoot all through that time – one factor with restricted locations and restricted actors. About 5 minutes after that call, I obtained right here up with the premise for “Oh, Hey!” — a model new couple take their first journey away collectively, nonetheless by the highest of the first night time time, it’s clear they don’t appear to be on the equivalent net web page, so Iris desperately tries to influence Isaac to resolve to her. 

My ideas come from what’s occurring in my life, a way or one different. After getting out of a essential relationship in my late 20s, I re-entered the world of courting with relative shock and horror. I’m not an anthropologist, nonetheless I’ve gone on adequate dates in New York Metropolis to know that apps have carried out one factor bizarre to our courting custom. All via historic previous, women have been often known as “hysterical” in so some methods and for thus many causes.

Now, on this current fashionable world of courting and hooking up, the place relationships can take so many sorts and there are so many selections and picks for labels and intentions, the romantic world is rife with potentialities of miscommunication. The chance of assorted interpretations of conversations and circumstances ends in newer strategies and causes that girls could also be often known as crazy and males could also be often known as assholes.

Essentially, we’re all merely of us, with our private items of bags, nonetheless I found this simplification of inherently troublesome feelings to be fairly fascinating and amusing. The thought for “Oh, Hey!” obtained right here from this curiosity — leaning into these tropes, and tearing them apart. Is Iris crazy? Is Isaac an asshole? Or are they every merely people who’ve their deepest fears triggered? 

A few days after the seed of the thought obtained right here to me, I was with one in every of my biggest associates, Molly Gordon. She had moreover gotten caught in L.A. and was residing in her childhood residence. We’d been associates for six years at the moment, a decade now, and bonded over, amongst completely different points, heartbreak. I suggested her the thought, not pretty optimistic what it would develop to be, and she or he immediately responded to it. By the highest of the day, we’d decided to do it collectively, and by the highest of the weekend, we had provide the story.

I then went once more to my childhood mattress room and wrote the screenplay over the course of two and a half weeks. Writing as shortly as that was not common for me, nonetheless this story felt like a tremendous discount; a life raft in the middle of the loneliness of Covid. I despatched that first draft to Molly, after which my brother/producer David Brooks, and to my delight, they favored it. With their help and insightful notes, it continued to develop and all of us felt this movie was one factor worth making.

Decrease to Sept. thirteenth, 2024, the ultimate day on set. We’ve merely carried out 21 days of principle photos in upstate New York. And as soon as extra, it’s surreal. Inside the lead as a lot because the shoot I had so many moments of questioning if it might actually happen: if I would actually get my dream solid (I did), if we would actually get financing (we did), or if it might all collapse for one motive or one different favor it had only a few cases sooner than (it didn’t).

On that day in mid September, we had made it to the highest of the shoot, and it felt like a triumph. It was troublesome in 1,000,000 strategies, as I take into consideration every film is — nonetheless it was moreover profoundly rewarding and joyful. After so a couple of years solely writing, I was directing as soon as extra. Molly and I dreamed up a story a couple of girl desperately looking for love as a choice to course of our private fears and poke pleasurable at them, inside the hopes that people would watch it and snicker and cringe and actually really feel seen and entertained. We dreamed up this idea, after which we obtained to make it with a remarkably proficient group of people.

After I made my first film, I not at all would have guessed it might have taken 9 years to make one different. Nonetheless now, as I get capable of premiere at Sundance, with a film I’m extraordinarily proud of, it truly feels favor it occurred one of the best ways it was presupposed to. I do know, I do know — it sounds overly saccharine, nonetheless I’m a romantic, and I owe that part of me a whole lot.

“Oh, Hey!” will premiere on the 2025 Sundance Film Pageant on Jan. 26.