With a successful acting career under his belt, including two Oscar nominations, Bradley Cooper set his sights on filmmaking—and not in a small way. Cooper launched out of the gate with an ambitious new take on A Star is Born starring Lady Gaga in the lead role of a woman catapulted into stardom and the ripple effects it has on her life. The film was nominated for over half a dozen Oscars, winning for Best Original Song. He followed that up with a bold take on the life and work of Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, in which he also starred as the titular conductor; that film went on to earn seven Oscar nominations. In other words, Cooper has a knack for realizing his grand visions into acclaimed prestige cinema.
Which makes his latest effort behind the lens all the more intriguing; Is This Thing On? is a decidedly smaller undertaking in that he eschews the trappings that defined both his earlier films, from their grand scale and settings (concert halls and music festivals, for example) to their examination of fame and career success on interpersonal relationships. Instead, here the focus is shifted to an everyday married couple facing a crossroads in their relationship where the majority of our time is spent in a claustrophobic comedy club and a small, sad bachelor apartment. Working from a script co-written by Cooper with Will Arnett and Mark Chappell, Is This Thing On? is loosely based on the real experiences of comic John Bishop who took up open-mic nights when he and his wife found themselves on the brink of separation.
Arnett stars as Alex Novak, an apparently devoted husband and father to Laura Dern's Tess and their two grade-school-aged boys; they live in a beautiful house in the suburbs of New York City and when we meet them, their marriage is already on the rocks. All the tell-tale signs are there, namely an unspoken distance between Alex, who's in finance, and Tess, a stay-at-home-mom to the boys who's thinking about getting back into club volleyball where she'd had an Olympic career before settling down to start a family. The two seem relatively resigned to their fate, both ready to end it after 20 years of giving it their best; Alex moves into a small apartment in the city and they begin the awkward work of dividing parenting and telling their friends the news.
After a particularly off night with Tess and friends, including Cooper as grown-up stoner Balls and his wife Christine (Andra Day) who are facing their own marital transition with their grown son leaving them empty nesters, Alex finds himself in downtown Manhattan outside the famed Comedy Cellar. At the bar upstairs, there's a $15 cover charge the doorman is willing to waive if Alex is planning to sign up for a five-minute open mic set. So he does, and he bombs. But he also connects with the regulars on the New York comedy scene (I particularly enjoyed a cameo by the great Amy Sedaris as the open mic emcee) and gets to enjoy doing something entirely for himself for a change, both of which give him a renewed energy even in the midst of the separation.
Meanwhile, Tess is trying to move on with her life as well, reconnecting with the sport that once meant so much to her (I'll refrain from sharing the specific cameo in her life, but suffice it to say the audience I saw the film with let out a collective gasp, half confused and half amused). As Tess and Alex navigate their own paths through their separation and on the road to divorce, they also find themselves intersecting perhaps more than they anticipated and in some very unexpected ways, all of which lead them to reconsider their priorities, both shared and individual. Arnett and Dern shine, creating characters that are deeply lived in and connected in ways that are instantly recognizable to anyone whose life has been so closely intertwined with another's.
It's no surprise for Dern, who is consistently one of the best parts of any cast she's a part of; more unexpected are the depths Arnett manages to plumb as he's more known for his comedic work, from his role as older brother Gob on Arrested Development to voicing the title character in Netflix's animated series BoJack Horseman. Here, he is a man at sea, facing a life that's changing before his eyes while he has very little control over any of it; that is, until he realizes just how much agency he actually does have in driving the direction not just of his own destiny but a shared one with his wife and kids. It's a beautiful character arc and Arnett delivers.
Credit, of course, largely goes to Cooper, who helms the film into authentic yet naturally complicated territory without ever taking any of it too seriously. He delights in highlighting the New York comedy scene with cameos and bit parts for several recognizable faces, and he proves himself more than capable of depicting life in all its messy, often funny moments as Is This Thing On? becomes a winsome take on the state of modern marriage, individual identity and recognizing there's still goodness to be found around us even when things are hard. All it takes it a good punchline and willingness to try.
Is This Thing On? opens in theaters December 19.
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