“I think we need to call it,” Tess (Laura Dern) tells Alex (Will Arnett), standing over the bathroom sink while brushing her teeth, a serious ask embedded in a moment of profound mundanity. She’s referring to their marriage, which, more than 20 years in and with two small children between them, has run its course. Tess, a former Olympic volleyball player, and Alex might not be unhappy with their marriage, but they’re certainly not happy in their marriage, or in their own lives creatively or professionally. Their split spurs Alex’s unconventional midlife crisis, one without fancy muscle cars or a hot young babe on the arm.
That crisis is the foundation of Bradley Cooper’s blandly reassuring, at times tedious and tunnel-visioned new directorial effort “Is This Thing On?” That midlife crisis also involves a hairpin career pivot, and no, I’m not talking about Cooper’s move into directing, starting with 2018’s Oscar-winning “A Star Is Born,” then the handsomely staged, Oscar-bait Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro” two years ago.
That pivot is in Alex’s sudden move toward becoming an amateur stand-up comic, using the stage and the microphone as therapy platforms for his anguish. (But is it anguish he’s feeling pre-divorce? He doesn’t register much on the emotional Richter scale.) He stumbles into the Olive Tree Cafe in the West Village and, sure, why the hell not, what do I have to lose, signs up to perform almost as a lark, but his comedy becomes something the movie intends to endorse as being successful or funny, even when that’s not always the case for those in the audience for this film. For a film about comedy as part of its elevator pitch, “Is This Thing On?” is curiously unfunny, with Cooper preferring to linger on the film’s melancholy, “Marriage Story”-lite core as Alex and Tess eventually, through a bit of movie magic in the shape of a screenplay, find their way back to each other.
But the general shape of “Is This Thing On?” is based on a true story that would seem contrived were it not real. A couple of decades ago, the English comedian John Bishop (who gets a “story by” credit here, along with Cooper’s co-writers Will Arnett and Mark Chappell) was working as a pharmaceutical rep, his marriage imploding, when he tried open-mic standup to avoid paying the establishment’s entry fee. And now look at him: Since then, he’s created multiple BBC One series. Perhaps also like this film’s director, both John and the fictional character of Alex found what they discovered to be their truer calling later in life.
Alex and Tessa’s friend group, meanwhile, is one of mixed ambitions. There’s Christine (Andra Day) and her seemingly permanently stoned-to-the-gills actor husband Balls (Cooper himself, and, yes, this is unfortunately the character’s name), who are staring down the barrel of their own empty nest and a marriage that’s pushing up against its expiration date. Cooper winds up giving himself the majority of the laughs, like when he suspects Alex might be seeing someone new. Alex says, “I’ve been doing standup.” Balls goes, “Is that her handle?”
Cooper, again working with cinematographer Matthew Libatique (who cameos as a comic in the Olive Tree Café), operates the camera himself, which appears to create a less visible illusion of immediacy or intimacy, with the 1.66:1 aspect ratio giving the film the physical dimensions of a European character study. The price of Cooper taking the camera into his own hands, no matter how closely he smooshes it onto his actors’ faces, is self-indulgence. There are takes that drag on and on, such as one of Dern biting into a weed cookie, that could have used more editorial discipline. “Is This Thing On?” very much has a “let’s let the cameras roll and catch lightning in a bottle!” feel, with Cooper falling perhaps a little bit too in love with the performances to rein in his naturalistic impulses. The actors here are predictably strong, with a swept-back, Cooper-coded Arnett digging into what is likely the most dramatic material of his career.
But “Is This Thing On?” feels like it doesn’t really get going until hour two — and those long takes can feel like gaping maws of silence that leave you begging for music or a score to be inserted so as to at least point you in the direction of feeling something. The first scene in which you start to feel like, ah, yes, there is some spark underneath the hood here involves Alex scrambling to get his kids a sitter— he ultimately leans on his parents, played by Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds, and their seemingly dysfunction-free marriage a little too much amid the separation — so that he can take another standup gig. That very same night, Tess is on what turns out to be a date with a friend who is recently single, and they happen to go to that very comedy club Alex is performing in. During his set, he goes into exquisite, vivisecting detail about the intricacies of his marriage breakup. You see the frisson, the lust even, flash across Tess’ face, electrified by his candor, perhaps giving her a glimpse of the Alex she once knew, the Tess she once was.
All of this really happened to John Bishop, who ended up on reconciliation’s way with his wife after she saw his own soul-bared open-mic performance. So, too, do Alex and Tess start to find their way back to teach other, starting up what I suppose you’d call an affair, as they’re keeping the relationship a secret from their kids and their friends while Alex continues to live in a bachelor pad, with Tess in their upstate home while dreaming of becoming a volleyball coach as a way back into her old sport. What makes “Is This Thing On?” work when it does is the chemistry exchange happening between Arnett and Dern, who are adept at going at it one minute and then making out the next. Not that Cooper’s film is by any means some kind of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” nor does it have the requisite throwdown temper tantrum on the level of “Marriage Story.”
Frankly, this film could have used one. It never feels like there’s any kind of catharsis, any release at the end of the crescendo, other than one taped on with a children’s chorus-led cover of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure,” a song that always gives you that feeling of “I want to run toward my future.”
Though often lethargic and listless, “Is This Thing On?” does stir up a vivid portrait of the New York City underground comedy milieu, even when New York City as a character feels more like the afterthought it isn’t supposed to be. Cooper casts actual comedians in roles, from Amy Sedaris as the club’s peppy emcee to a dry-as-a-bone Jordan Jensen as Alex’s first sexual partner post-divorce. But his commitment to naturalism and immersion takes a chunk out of your soul after what feels like a very long 124 minutes; it could’ve used more spring in its step. Isn’t joie de vivre what a midlife crisis is all about?
Grade: C+
“Is This Thing On?” premiered at the New York Film Festival. Searchlight Pictures will release the film on Friday, December 19.
