Is This Thing On? (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Bradley Cooper

Starring:  Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Bradley Cooper, Andra Day, Sean Hayes, Peyton Manning, Christine Ebersole, Ciaran Hinds

Is This Thing On? makes stand-up comedy seem to be the easiest hobby to take up.  It certainly works out that way for Alex Novak (Arnett), a 40ish man recently separated from his wife Tess (Dern) who one night decides to watch some comedy at a Manhattan comedy club.  He doesn't have the cash on him to pay for the $15.00 cover charge but if he signs up for the open mike night, he won't have to pay it.  

Alex takes the stage and after a long pause, he starts talking about his divorce and gets a few laughs.  From there, Alex is hooked on performing stand-up, not only as a hobby but as therapy.  Alex is the beneficiary of awfully patient and forgiving audiences to be sure.  The worst reception he receives is silence later in the film when he goes on a rant after fighting again with his ex and the shocked crowd doesn't quite know how to respond, including Alex's father (Hinds) who drops in unannounced.  Earlier in the film, Tess goes to the club on a date with a colleague (Manning) and learns of Alex's new passion the hard way.  We see closeups of her face and her expressions range from shock to elation.  Then, she and Alex meet up outside and begin a passionate love affair. 

For reasons known only to them, Tess and Alex keep their "affair" a secret.  Why?  Who knows?  By the time this occurs, we don't much care either.  Writer/producer/director and co-star Bradley Cooper knows how to make a movie look good and pulls very engaging performances from his actors, but with both Maestro and Is This Thing On?, the movies drag on.  The emotional stakes aren't there.  When Alex first takes the stage and takes an eternity to even utter a word, the crowd doesn't heckle or show any impatience.  Alex is never heckled or booed.  I'll bet every comedian wishes he or she encountered such patient audiences when they first started out.  

The best performance in the movie, however, belongs to Cooper in a supporting role as Balls (yes, that's his name), a middling actor whose beard is always changing and composes himself in an offbeat manner.  He's operating on a different playing field than the rest of the cast, and the movie sorely needed more of him.