by Dov Kornits<\/p>\n
Worth:\u00a0$14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 \u2014 the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth\n<\/p>\n
Cast:
Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Bradley Cooper, Andra Day, Sean Hayes, Ciar\u00e1n Hinds, Jordan Jensen, Christine Ebersole<\/p>\n
Intro:
\u2026 the whole is far lesser than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n
Will Arnett rarely plays live action (we mention live action, because, um, Batman) leading roles. He wrote one for himself with Flaked \u2013 which didn\u2019t really take off on Netflix \u2013 and now he stars in Bradley Cooper\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Alex Novak (Arnett) works as some sort of suit (the fact that you don\u2019t 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 (Ciar\u00e1n 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.<\/p>\n
Similar to Noah Baumbach\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The Novaks have close friends, played by real-life married couple Sean Hayes (Will Arnett\u2019s 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\u2019s perpetually off-their-face couple. Cooper has given himself the flashiest supporting role, a scene-stealing aspiring actor airhead.<\/p>\n
Is This Thing On?\u2019s success hinges on Arnett, and even though he is committed and great in the role, he just doesn\u2019t have the screen presence to pull off a dramatic lead. Appropriately, his stand-up scenes are strongest. Arnett\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
This is Bradley Cooper\u2019s third film as director. It\u2019s no A Star is Born, but it\u2019s also more engrossing and entertaining than Maestro. They\u2019re all very different films that you wouldn\u2019t know were directed by the same person. Is that a good thing? There\u2019s certainly plenty to like about Is This Thing On?, including Arnett\u2019s committed performance, it\u2019s just that the whole is far lesser than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n
\n 7Engrossing and entertaining <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Dov Kornits Year: \u00a02025 Director:\u00a0 Bradley Cooper Rated:\u00a0 M Release: \u00a05 February 2026 Distributor:\u00a0Disney Running time:\u00a0121 minutes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-266769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}