At the beginning of Is This Thing On?, Alex Novak (Will Arnett) really needs a drink, because that's the only way he can think of to cope with the fracture in his marriage that is leading to divorce. The cover charge is $15. He doesn't have cash. So, he signs up for open mic night and tries his hand at comedy.
It turns out he's really bad at comedy, doesn't have a clue about its nature, its rhythms, its meaning, but he gets up there anyway, and because this movie has determined it's going to be about a man who stumbles into a career as a stand-up comic, he keeps at it. He doesn't know why. Neither does the movie.
What's most surprising about Is This Thing On? is that it was directed by Bradley Cooper, who also directed the vastly superior Maestro and A Star Is Born, and watching this movie reveals something about those films in retrospect. They are each strangely paced, following a trajectory that favors a discouraged glumness. In that regard, Is This Thing On? is recognizably a work of Cooper's, because once again it favors depressed seriousness over actual revelation.
It's also co-written by Arnett, along with Mark Chappell, and between the three of them it's almost alarming that they can't come up with a single joke. Alex's stand-up routines are nothing more than the rantings of an angry white man, and if anything the film is at least honest by not having the audience react with uproarious laughter.
There's not much funny at all in Is This Thing On?, which leaves the film to be a revealing and painful look at marriage and self-discovery, but it's neither of those things, either. Alex's soon-to-be-ex-wife Tess (Laura Dern) has more of a handle on what she wants and why. She's a former professional volleyball player who is encouraged, during the film, to set her sights on coaching the U.S. Olympic team in 2028. A pipe dream? Perhaps, but she pursues it with intent and clear-eyed dedication, which is far more than can be said for Alex.
He's not much of a character at all, just a man who regrets whatever choices he's made, though what those are, we can't be sure. The movie doesn't even give him an identity, other than a father and a man whose marriage fell apart. We see his sitcom-style parents and some of his sitcom-style friends, but they offer no insight, either. A few times, Alex is dressed in a suit and tie, but what he does for a living is unclear, though it's enough to help him pay for an apartment in Manhattan, to buy a new electric mini-van for the kids and, I guess we can assume, keep it parked somewhere. In New York City, that's not nothing. So, who is he?
No clue. He just stumbles into comedy, and we're supposed to relate to his plight, I guess. The movie at least surrounds Alex with that group of friends, like loopy actor Balls (yes, Balls, for reasons never made clear, and perhaps that's for the best), who's played by Cooper. Balls has a wife named Christine, played by Andra Day, who almost, but not quite, comes to life as a character with her tough talk. There are also a couple of anonymous, asexual gay friends who join everyone at a big house on the shore for long weekends.
Those are mostly setups for Alex and Tess to have long discussions that inevitably lead to fights or to make-up sex or both, but despite Dern's valiant attempts to find a beating heart at the center of the film, none of it adds up to much. As a comedy about marriage, it's empty, but not nearly as empty as being a drama about comedy. Alex sort of plods along, as does the film, which is never less than amiable, sometimes (though not as frequently as it should be) fairly engaging, and unfortunately overlong.
Maybe it's true: Comedy is not pretty. At best, in Is This Thing On?, it's fitfully amusing.
Viewed January 18, 2026 — Alamo Drafthouse Los Angeles
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