As their marriage unravels, Alex faces middle age and divorce, seeking a new purpose in the New York comedy scene. Meanwhile, his wife Tess confronts sacrifices made for their family, forcing them to navigate co-parenting and identities.
“Is This Thing On?” is the latest film directed by Bradley Cooper. It follows Alex (Will Arnett) and Tess (Laura Dern), who suddenly call it quits after being married for 20 years. To help cope and process what’s happened, Alex turns to stand-up comedy.
I’ll be honest, it took me some time to get into the story at play here. The beginning of the film feels very abrupt. At first, you don’t know these characters, so their potential marital demise had no real effect on me. It wasn’t until later, when the film explores character dynamics, that I was able to get on board more.
And though Will Arnett plays our lead character, this character is not as funny as Will Arnett. In my opinion, he wasn’t that great at stand-up, but he does keep going back.
Going on stage in a room full of strangers and baring one’s soul honestly sounds like a nightmare scenario to me. But there’s a courage to showcasing vulnerability. Cooper captures the feeling of unburdening oneself and facing one’s fears.
There’s a comedy community here as well, and Cooper casts real comedians around Arnett. They all, for some reason, seem to think he has this underlying talent, but to me, it just widened the gap between how unfunny Alex is and these other comedians.
Laura Dern is great as usual. I feel like she always delivers, and that continues to be the case here. On the grand scheme of things, I’m happy her character was able to find joy again in her career. However, her storyline is that she is a retired USA Olympian who played volleyball and dedicated a lot of her early life to becoming one of the greats. I wasn’t sure what she did besides becoming a wife and mother during her retirement, but she suddenly wants to go into coaching, and I don’t understand what took her so long to have that epiphany. This also just highlighted to me how far out of Alex’s league Tess is.
This film is decidedly less flashy than Cooper’s other two films. Cooper is a steady hand behind the camera, but I can’t help but be confounded as to why he felt drawn to direct this film.Another nitpick of mine is that this movie has too many cameos. There’s Arnett’s friend and podcast partner Sean Hayes, who has a small supporting role. Peyton Manning inexplicably shows up. Not to mention Bradley Cooper himself, who plays an aloof actor who often provides some actual comedic relief.
“Is This Thing On?” is a solidly acted film thanks to Arnett and Dern. However, I found the story to be middling. Cooper’s last two films just have not hit me the same way that “A Star is Born” did. I’m not saying directors always have to deliver heavy hitters, but I was a bit let down by this movie. However, I am curious to see what Cooper’s directorial filmography will look like as we advance.
In Theaters Friday, December 19th
11k
19.8k
1.5k
1.8k