by Dov Kornits
Worth:Â $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Bradley Cooper, Andra Day, Sean Hayes, Ciarán Hinds, Jordan Jensen, Christine Ebersole
Intro:
… the whole is far lesser than the sum of its parts.
Will Arnett rarely plays live action (we mention live action, because, um, Batman) leading roles. He wrote one for himself with Flaked – which didn’t really take off on Netflix – and now he stars in Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, a dramedy loosely based on English comedian John Bishop, whose marriage was saved when he started doing stand-up comedy, which is the central premise here.
Alex Novak (Arnett) works as some sort of suit (the fact that you don’t really see/know his exact job says it all), who seems dead inside. He has a beautiful wife, Tess (Laura Dern), a one-time volleyball Olympian, and they have two young sons. After a bit of a wild dinner party with friends, we skip to a future where Alex is living alone, and stumbles into an open mic night at a comedy club. As Alex juggles work, the kids and his parents (Ciarán Hinds, Christine Ebersole), the only thing making him happy are these unpaid late night gigs at the comedy club. For those counting, real-life comedians Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe, Amy Sedaris and Reggie Conquest play the club comedians who mentor Alex.
Similar to Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, Is This Thing On? navigates a modern once-loving marriage that is coming apart at the seams, as the kids get older and the honeymoon is over, with the central figures questioning the union and whether it makes them happy. Unlike marriages of the past, where you just got on with it, Alex and Tess each need to be happy in themselves for the marriage to work.
The Novaks have close friends, played by real-life married couple Sean Hayes (Will Arnett’s Smartless podcast buddy) and Scott Icenogle, who barely have a line of dialogue between them, even though they feature in a number of critical scenes, and Andra Day and Bradley Cooper’s perpetually off-their-face couple. Cooper has given himself the flashiest supporting role, a scene-stealing aspiring actor airhead.
Is This Thing On?’s success hinges on Arnett, and even though he is committed and great in the role, he just doesn’t have the screen presence to pull off a dramatic lead. Appropriately, his stand-up scenes are strongest. Arnett’s lack of leading man chops becomes more evident because Laura Dern does have the gravitas and presence required of a leading dramatic role, but hers is a supporting part.
This is Bradley Cooper’s third film as director. It’s no A Star is Born, but it’s also more engrossing and entertaining than Maestro. They’re all very different films that you wouldn’t know were directed by the same person. Is that a good thing? There’s certainly plenty to like about Is This Thing On?, including Arnett’s committed performance, it’s just that the whole is far lesser than the sum of its parts.
7Engrossing and entertaining