‘Is This Thing On?’: Will Arnett Finds Solace Through Stand-Up in Bradley Cooper’s Moving Marital Drama

Alci Rengifo

Bradley Cooper takes blending comedy and tragedy quite seriously in “Is This Thing On?” It is a welcome downscaling for the actor-director, whose previous work profiled relationships within the grand world of music stardom. This new film feels more personal, which it indeed is. Lead Will Arnett helped craft the screenplay and no doubt draws from the personal experience of divorce and separation. These are common themes in rom-coms and dramas, what Cooper does refreshingly well with the material is overlap it with engaging themes about vocation as therapy and discovering a passion you never realized you harbored. 

The story opens with a married New York couple clearly on the rocks. Tess (Laura Dern) is brushing her teeth when clarity seems to strike and she tells husband Alex (Arnett) that, “I think we need to call it, right?” The feeling is mutual. This will not be a separation with melodramatic fireworks, but something that feels mutual. Bubbling agitation and bitterness comes out after a cannabis-fueled get together with married friends Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Cooper), and gay newlyweds Stephen (Sean Hayes) and Geoffrey (Scott Icenogle, Hayes’ husband in real life). The couple still keeps it civil and to let off steam, Alex wanders into the Olive Tree Café in the West Village. Preferring to not pay the $15 cover charge, he decides to put his name down for open mic night at the downstairs Comedy Cellar. When he hits the stage, Alex is surprised at how sharing about his divorce translates to laughs from the audience. 

In his update of “A Star Is Born,” and the lengthy Leonard Bernstein biopic, “Maestro,” Cooper showed off a fevered visual sense that embodied the larger than life characters. “Is This Thing On?” looks almost like a ‘90s indie production, focusing entirely on the characters and keeping the settings limited to a few key places. The screenplay by Cooper, Arnett and Mark Chappell is partly inspired by the true story of John Bishop, a soccer athlete who after a divorce, found release and a second career in stand-up comedy at the Frog and Bucket comedy club in Manchester. Both Arnett and Cooper have had high profile divorces and break-ups, so everyone involved knows what they’re talking about. To their credit, the material has a rare maturity, lacking the explosiveness of good peers like “Marriage Story.” For Alex, discovering stand-up is a way to share with the world his confusion and pain over the end of a 26-year-long relationship. The sincerity of his act endears him to other comedians at the Comedy Cellar, played by real stand-ups including Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe, Reggie Conquest, and Dave Attell. 

Alex begins to live a double life, turning the Comedy Cellar into a safe space where he can run to when life developments take challenging turns. He keeps his notebook of material secret from Tess and their two boys (Blake Kane and Calvin Knegten). Enough of a backstory is built as well to capture the dynamics in the marriage that eventually led to trouble. Tess is haunted by her past as a promising U.S. Olympics volleyball player, now determined to get back into coaching. Alex does not realize why she is upset when he frames a photo of her younger self playing, her face away from the camera. As in many relationships, he still needs to realize when what he seeks is the idea of her and not the actual woman. Tess has her own flaws, like not realizing when she stings Alex with hostile, at times unfair comments that flow out of personal frustration. 

Separating becomes even more difficult because of the others involved. Alex’s parents, Jan (Ciarán Hinds) and Marilyn (Christine Ebersole) are wonderfully warm and quirky. Marilyn refuses to end her friendship with Tess. Cooper himself chews the scenery as Balls, a midlevel actor with a spacey attitude, who has somehow sustained a marriage to the more assertive Christine. When he finds out about Alex’s stand-up routine, Balls can only react with friendly envy, convinced his friend will go far, to Alex’s own surprise. The Comedy Cellar gang then becomes both a refuge and learning experience for Alex, providing camaraderie while illuminating him on how this particular art form works. Arnett has the right amount of scruff and uncertainty to show us Alex growing into the role, building confidence with each new routine. Eventually he gets to the verge of getting too raw onstage when something uncomfortable happens outside. Being funny is far from easy and “Is This Thing On?” is one of the best recent films about stand-up as a vocation. When he sleeps with a fellow comic, Alex turns it into material, and she commends him because this is how art tends to work. Songwriters and authors have been doing the same thing for so long.

Cooper never lets the material slide into some kind of hopeless, acidic take on a crumbling marriage. In the end, this is a feel-good movie that knows not all separations are bloodbaths. There is plenty of great humor that could have been gimmicky, yet feels organic, even when Alex and Tess start having sex secretly despite not fully resolving their problems. When Tess has dinner with an important figure who can get her a coaching gig (played by former quarterback Peyton Manning), they just so happen to go to the Comedy Cellar to see Alex hit the stage and joke about getting laid. These twists also avoid becoming slapstick. They have comedy for sure, but Cooper and cast, as well as cinematographer Matthew Libatique, keep the story grounded. For some, there might even be too much hope in the end, yet that’s why comedy is one of our purest forms of expression. Life is hilariously unpredictable and love can bring joy and pain at the same time. 

“Is This Thing On?” releases Dec. 19 in theaters nationwide.