Is This Thing On? is Bradley Cooper’s most mundane movie yet -though not in a bad way. Compared to A Star is Born and Maestro, big movies in either scale or concept about celebrity, legacy, and art, this is a movie incredibly small and intimate -about a relationship and an artistic calling, though an incredibly localized one. In a way it feels like the movie that would have built up to those others, had Cooper come to filmmaking from a more traditional avenue than being a movie star and entrusted with a big budget and sweeping story on his debut. And in a way it might be him attempting to demonstrate some range to earn his clout with a scaled-back human story.
It is a curious story that originates with of all people the British comedian (and brief Doctor Who companion) John Bishop, whose own life story and marriage is the basis here. Bishop, though very successful and a household name in the U.K., is not particularly known in the U.S.; and so unlike when Kumail Nanjiani explored the intersection of his romance and stand-up career in The Big Sick, Bishop has been recast. Though his analogue is also quite interesting -Will Arnett, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Chappell, and who has never had a starring role like this before. Though it has been a long time coming.
He plays Alex Novak, a New Yorker whose twenty-year marriage to his wife Tess (Laura Dern) -a former champion volleyball player- is falling apart. They are amicably separating at the start of the film with divorce a very real possibility, due to a variety of emotional and communication issues in their relationship. They share two children and a friend group though making the process difficult and strained -and though Alex puts on a calm and considerate demeanour, he is pretty devastated and depressed by the situation. One lonely night in Manhattan, he puts his name down for the open mic at the Comedy Cellar, unable to pay the cover fee to get in for a drink, and ad-libbing some jokes about his divorce finds himself pretty comfortable. He soon becomes a regular at the club, processing his situation and feelings of remorse and frustration through stand-up routines, all the while trying to maintain a cordial relationship with Tess and attain some normality with her and his family and friends.
Though the film hinges on that element of stand-up comedy being a means of therapy and healing for Alex, it maintains a careful focus on just the general aspects of his personal life and relationship with Tess -for the purposes of another part of the true story. This is not the narrative of a man finding stand-up as an excuse to rag on his ex-wife, which was certainly a popular topic in male-oriented stand-up comedy for a time. On the contrary, the jokes and bits that we hear from Alex are never mean-spirited, even if he uses the subject a bit too much as a crutch and tends a little towards self-pity without seriously exploring his role in the break-up until late. But outside of the comedy, the movie doesn’t take his perspective alone -Tess is never vilified, indeed in Dern’s extremely capable hands she is played very sympathetically, the hardships of divorce reflected in her as much as Alex.
Dern and Arnett have really great chemistry, which is as necessary to the film as it is unexpected -just given the wildly different roads they’ve both been on prior to this movie. They talk and banter with the kind of naturalism believable to a long-term relationship and play particularly well that sense of comfort yet awkwardness when together with their kids, trying to keep up a sense of normality both for the kids’ sake and their own. And unlike the last divorce movie Dern was a part of, Marriage Story, there is no spite and relatively little anger -no real ill-will from either party, and still some honest affection, which is a nice thing to see in a movie dealing with this topic. Yet that doesn't mean the pain isn't there, and largely we do see it from Alex's perspective. And Arnett plays it with an earnest depth of feeling that is surprising to some, not so much to others. Arnett I don’t believe would have come to this role at all, regardless of his hand in the screenplay, if not for his work on BoJack Horseman, which though an animated show demonstrated his great capacity for drama and pathos -and though it isn't the same kind of an outlet here (there's no "Free Churro" sequence of the movie), shades of his chronically depressed horse do come to the surface occasionally. But Arnett also plays his context exceptionally -the joy that performing comedy brings to him is richly translated, just as much so as his love for Tess, bleary-eyed though it might be. Tess knows the score better, but Dern brings as much compassion in one of her best performances in years, and integrity enough that her arc never feels like it serves Alex's whims and desires.
Against this context, Cooper is restrained in his direction. He appears in the film as "Balls" an intermittently successful actor and goofy friend of Alex's, married to Tess's principal confidante Christine -played by Andra Day. In spite of giving himself this showcase he proves adept as a director of comedy in letting his actors dictate the terms and tone of a scene, such as Alex's eccentric parents, played by Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds. His more compelling work is in the stand-up sequences where he shoots from the stage the routines performed by the likes of Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe, and Reggie Conquest -all real New York-based comedians (and the club emcee in a delightful surprise is played by Arnett's BoJack co-star Amy Sedaris). Specifically, Alex's first set is shot with glaring intimacy, the camera close-in as it tracks around his face and towards the audience, putting the viewer in his space of trepidation transforming into something zen. In terms of camera tricks, Cooper also duplicates one of his from Maestro, where Alex going down the stairs at a house after a tense situation seamlessly melds into his entering the comedy club.
It happens in fact at the movie's climax, intense on both the stand-up and relationship fronts. We see that the latter almost exclusively informs the former, and while the movie strains a bit of credulity in how it depicts the aftermath of Tess inevitably finding out about Alex's new passion, the stakes of their marriage are taken with the utmost sincerity. The pair work towards reckoning with their issues -Tess in the depression and disillusionment with her life in athletic retirement, Alex for what is ultimately understood to be a subconscious shallowness to how he views his wife. A big framed picture becomes a major tell, and while it is explored much later in the movie than it should have been, it is good that Alex is not made to be some totally guiltless party in this situation.
Is This Thing On? is genuinely sweet, and manages to make its drama and unconventional resolution work, in no small part due to the efforts of its actors. Dern and Arnett shine tremendously, and Arnett especially -pulling double-duty as screenwriter- makes a particularly strong impression that I hope resonates enough for more movies like this. His relationship with Cooper is clearly quite strong -his slightly more subdued directing approach refreshing as well. An all-around funny and likeable film. I just hope Alex finds some new material soon.
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