'Is This Thing On?' Performs a Decent Set
Comedy is honesty. If you're honest with each other, you'll live a freer life. Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? is a refreshing dose of reality that runs the risk of putting you to sleep if you dislike anti-climactic movies. Even as an appreciator of slow cinema, I found some of Is This Thing On's plot so slow that I questioned whether anything would ever happen in the film. Intentionally, not much does. It doesn't capture the vibrant subtlety of a boring life quite as well as Richard Linklater does, but it does a good job of getting to the core of being an adult.
Is This Thing On? comes across as just another typical romantic drama. In many aspects, it is. The movie is a bit like Marriage Story without the director sniffing his own farts. It's about a marriage that is on the downslope. Alex (Will Arnett) and Tess Novak (Laura Dern) are separated. Alex lives in Tess' vacant apartment while Tess continues to live in a beautiful home with their two boys. There's no visible animosity between the two. They don't have arguments and civilly discuss their emotions like most adults do (or should)
Throughout the film, you're waiting for the big blowup to happen, yet it never does. There's no Marriage Story shouting match. The closest this movie gets to that is during a quiet dispute. The movie highlights the futility of extreme emotions. One of the characters' kids in the movie is unafraid of the fact that we could get hit with a nuclear weapon any day, in a modern situation that makes the Cold War look like a picnic. The boy's stance is that he already has a fulfilling life, and if he's going to die, then he's content with that. Which is a terribly dark thought, but it isn't entirely unrealistic to catastrophise these days.
The only emotional one in the story is Alex's brother (who, IMDB-obliviously, uncredits his character's name), played by Bradley Cooper. Cooper isn't a raging maniac. He's more of a quirky oddball who can't embrace the reality he lives in. He's always looking for the next big role in a movie, even if it means staying in character for a job that probably won't happen. While pretending everything is okay, Alex struggles to find solace in his life. He just goes by the motions of repetition that adults fall into until he runs into an open mic at the Comedy Cellar. Deciding to take the stage for the first time, Alex has a pretty good set.
As someone who's been in a managerial position at a prolific comedy club for many years, I can tell you that the jokes the comedians tell in this movie would often only have sympathy chuckles from a couple of people in the crowd. Not full-blown laughs. Alex is just a guy standing on stage, delivering facts about his divorce with little humor. Yet, the crowd loves him? Also, a pro tip to 95% of comics. Stop making every joke about sex. Hearing about someone's genitals every night gets old really fast.
Through doing standup, Alex finds therapy. When a room full of strangers laughs and agrees with your problems, it's incredibly validating. It gives Alex purpose and belonging. Like, he matters to people outside of his immediate family. Instead of just working his finance job, then seeing the kids, Alex has something to look forward to. Even if it doesn't pay, being a comic is like being a kid again. You can get high, get drunk, hang out late, and you're rewarded for being truthful. As mentioned, the movie is saying that honesty will set you free. It's true. As long as you keep lying to yourself and others because you don't want them to get hurt, you'll end up hurting everyone.
Alex, Tess, and his brother learn the value of being frank. Not only does it make them happier, but it also repairs the damaged relationships they have. There's a reason people love standup comedy. Standup tells the truth of how absurd the world is. If we can't laugh at humanity's own failures, then we'll all end up jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. As the Joker says, life isn't a tragedy, "it's a f*cking comedy." However, it's arguable that life is an extremely dark dramady. The film's themes are interesting, but its execution leaves much to be desired.
ITTO desperately needs thirty minutes of scenes left on the cutting room floor. How many times do we have to see the characters having the same conversation over and over again? Whoever edited this film clearly doesn't understand the value of trimming fat. Nor does Director Bradley Cooper, who thinks he's making a Jim Jarmusch picture. There's one scene in which a group of characters sings the entirety of "Amazing Grace" while setting up breakfast. Whatever the scene was trying to communicate could have been done with one or two verses of the song, then cut to the next scene.
Another problem with the picture is its plot conveniences. Alex lives in the suburbs of New York, presumably close to the city, since Alex frequents the Cellar so much. For some unfathomable reason, every character visits the Comedy Cellar when Alex is on stage. He never tells them where he's going, yet they wind up in that place amidst the largest city in the US?
The rest of the cast works pretty well. Laura Dern plays a nice, non-confrontational lady. So she doesn't stand out much, while Will Arnett gives a solid dramatic performance, although he can't produce tears no matter how hard he tries. The best performance comes from Ciarán Hinds playing Alex's father, an immigrant whose wisdom and good spirit radiate on screen.
Is This Thing On? contains relevant themes, interesting subversions, and enough nuance to make it a solid viewing option if you have enough caffeine in your system. It's certainly not a Best Picture contender, no matter how hard Cooper and Netflix try to push it. It's merely okay, which is pretty much the state of Bradley Cooper's directorial career.
Is This Thing On? Releases in theaters on Friday, December 19
