Bradley Cooper‘s “Is This Thing On?,” based on a true story, stars Will Arnett (Alex) and Laura Dern (Tess) as a long-term couple, now separated, who have two young sons. Andra Day and Cooper play their close friends, another troubled couple.
Alex, newly living apart from his wife, accepts an unexpected opportunity to be on stage at a comedy club. Adam Graham, Detroit News: He “feels a sense of catharsis from the act of performance. So he does it again, and again. Soon he’s a regular on New York’s comedy circuit, not exactly telling jokes, but sharing.”
The trailer for Is This Thing On? starts with Alex about to go on for that first time.
Stand-Up Comedy As Therapy
Various top movie critics indicate in their review titles/subtitles/subheadings their understanding that Alex’s main attraction to stand-up comedy at this precise point in his life is that he’s experiencing a type of therapy via strangers listening to him.
- Owen Gleiberman, Variety: …Will Arnett Is an Estranged Husband Who Does Stand-Up…as Therapy
- David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: …a comic drama about stand-up as divorce therapy
- Jocelyn Noveck, APNews: …Will Arnett finds therapy at the open mic…
- Peter Travers, The Travers Take: …standup comedy as therapy for marital malfunction…
- Adam Graham, Detroit News: Therapy takes form of stand-up comedy
Is This Thing On?: The Title
A frequent comedy club line acquires a double meaning as the film progresses, i.e., could this marriage be back on?
Selected Reviews
Largely appreciated by the critics, Is This Thing On? has solid performances, brief but meaningfully connected scenes, and an interesting way to depict how a relationship can evolve when both the “therapy” client and the partner begin to talk things out.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: “It’s an achingly authentic portrait of a marriage quietly losing oxygen, less a conventional breakup story than an observational study, shot with the intimacy of reality TV.”
David Fear, Rolling Stone: “…(I)t’s both the way that Cooper and Arnett play this arc and the movie’s switch-up from middle-aged male malaise to a story about marriages — how they’re kept alive or wither on the vine, how they require personal replenishment and collective renewal, how people can become so caught up in the idea of their partner that they fail to see who the person truly is — that turn this film into something far more unique.”
Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: “Was it really the marriage that made them miserable, or did they do that on their own? There’s no easy answer to that one. But watching them work it out is great fun.”
Matt Zoller Seitz, rogerebert.com: “The alchemical collision of the actors, the style, and the real-life settings result in a film so attentive to fluctuations in the characters’ emotions that watching them exist is exciting.”
Billie Melissa, Newsweek: “[It] reminds us that there is a possibility to restore the relationships we feel slipping through our fingers if we meet our friends and family where they’re at, and allow them to flourish in new ways, as well as giving ourselves the same grace.”
