Review: Is This Thing On?

The first time we see Alex Novak (Will Arnett), the protagonist of Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, he’s in a bad place. He’s at a raucous event at his kids’ school, so loud and joyful that no one will notice him crumpled in the back of the auditorium, totally flattened, his resting face an emoji for inner turmoil, pain, and regret. We quickly see why: his wife Tess (Laura Dern) is brushing her teeth, and asks, simply, “We need to call it, right?” 

“I think so too,” he agrees, and that’s that. Cooper is a strong enough storyteller to know that this is the only smart entry point, as late as is narratively possible; like the opening stretch of his A Star is Born, it’s an admirably casual, almost ambling beginning, a movie that starts without announcing itself. A lesser filmmaker would leave an audience adrift or even confused, but Cooper and his collaborators quickly convey the emotional shorthand of this  relationship, and how quickly these two people can cause each other to escalate.

That’s one of the stories Is This Thing On? is telling. The other, as evidenced in the title, is about how Alex quite accidentally becomes a stand-up comedian. His entrée is clever; wandering aimlessly and somewhat desperately around the Village, he signs up for an open mic at the Comedy Cellar primarily to avoid the cover charge (he just wants a drink). Yet he soon finds going up on stage and rambling about his personal problems to be therapeutic, and (bonus) cheaper than therapy. You see him slowly but surely finding both his voice and a community, learning the ropes, frequently struggling but never giving up, because it’s basically a hobby.

Thankfully (especially considering its male director and his two male co-writers), Tess isn’t the kind of thin harpy that a lesser movie would have made her; she’s a fully-formed character as well, and shortly after her husband finds his new outlet, the picture makes a well-timed focus shift to her life and how it’s changed. She’s trying to reimagine herself as something other than a wife and mother; her little panic attack in the shower (with a repeated affirmation of “You got this”) is one of the most relatable moments of any movie this year.

And her decision to “get back out there” is the point at which the picture shifts into a higher gear, moving from a good movie to a great one. She goes out on a date with an old colleague (Peyton Manning, surprisingly good), and the writing here is impeccable; watch carefully how they circle each other, correct themselves, signal and connect. It’s going so well that he suggests they go to his buddy’s comedy club, and you can imagine what happens next. But what makes this series of scenes extraordinary is not what happens but how it’s done: the delicate set-up, how Cooper holds on her face as she listens to her husband talk about her, and how carefully and precisely the post-performance scene is written. 

I won’t reveal where it goes, but this was the moment at which I excitedly wrote “This is a movie about grown-ups!” in my notebook, and meant it. Arnett and Dern are both middle-aged, as are their characters, and there’s something boldly refreshing about the idea that they’re such messes; you reach a certain age where you think you’ve got it all figured out, and not long after that, you may discover that you’re wrong. This is a movie about that discovery, and no one’s cosplaying here; let us bear in mind that Arnett, who not only stars but co-wrote the screenplay (with Cooper and Mark Chappell), went through a very public breakup with his wife and mother-of-his-kids Amy Poehler a few years ago. It’s a compliment to his performance to note that I didn’t make that connection until long after the fact, but once you make it, it’s impossible not to imagine how deeply felt and personal this performance must have been, and that his proximity to the material may be why it’s arguably the best work he’s ever done. And Dern is brilliant, because of course she is.

Is This Thing On? starts to get a little pat in the home stretch; the conflicts between Alex and Tess lean predictable, there’s a rather inevitable onstage breakdown (I’m not sure if you’ve seen Punchline, but Cooper and Arnett certainly have), and by the time we had a parent breathlessly running through the halls lest they miss the kids’ school performance, it felt like a million other movies, in a derogatory way. But until that clumsy third act, it feels like other movies in a complimentary way — specifically, the kind of modest, lived-in, ‘90s indie that we often sought out as an alternative to the big blustery blockbusters. We still need those today, of course, and this is a fine example of what those kind of stories can be, and what they can do.

B

“Is This Thing On?” is in theaters this weekend.