Nothing says the start of a new year like the reminder that you might not have had a New Year’s kiss and Valentine’s Day is just around the gloomy corner. Woah, I may need a journal instead of this staff position. … Well, I have four distinct journals now (thank you, Santa), and, as pessimistic as I tend to be, I couldn’t resist the appeal of Will Arnett and Laura Dern in a quietly powerful performance that makes the audience reconsider how it views marriage and married couples. Bradley Cooper’s (COL ’97) “Is This Thing On?” is the claustrophobic vision of one man trying to figure out where his marriage went wrong and how to move through the minefield of divorce.
Will Arnett plays Alex Novak, who can best be described as a finance bro, as he does not do a lick of work for the two-hour runtime and only states he “works in finance” at the seemingly unavoidable end of his marriage to his wife, Tess (Laura Dern). There are no “Marriage Story” levels of drama or broken china, just two adults who no longer feel close to each either, their distance a quiet yet ever-expanding abyss that has grown too great for them to overcome. While Alex shares amicable custody of their two children, Felix and Jude, he also has an unprecedented amount of time on his hands. So, one night after dropping Tess off at a train station and sharing an edible with her, Alex ventures into a stoned person’s worst nightmare: a comedy club.
Despite the anxiety I felt watching him step up on stage, Alex turns out to have a natural and honest charm that begins to win over his audience. He isn’t as much telling jokes as relating the harder parts of his life to a sympathetic audience, and it’s hard not to smile at his humor. Comedy becomes a form of therapy for Alex, a way for him to process the 26 years of his relationship that disappeared in the blink of an eye. The movie, if a little heavy-handed at times, lets viewers know that Alex is a loving father and husband who just went wrong somewhere back down the line. The narrative, while primarily focused on Alex, also takes time to examine Tess and her tribulations amid the divorce. A former Olympic volleyball player, she also struggles to find a new identity.
The film’s emotional weight is carried almost solely on the backs of Arnett and Dern, aided by in-your-face camera angles that force the viewer to confront every emotion on screen. Each word traded between the two actors carries the weight of things left unsaid infused with hurt-laden love. Whether together on screen or separately fighting their own battles of identity, Alex and Tess feel deeply relatable and like people you want to root for, making me wish I had money on the line.
While the crux of this movie is Arnett and Dern, Cooper and Andra Day make appearances as slightly one-dimensional yet hilarious best friends to the married couple. Cooper plays Balls, a floundering actor who is constantly higher than even Willie Nelson would be on a weekday. Balls is not a good guy, and there is no deep emotional character arc that hooks the viewer, but Cooper’s humorously annoying portrayal makes any scene with him in it a pleasure. Day plays Christine, Balls’ wife and Alex’s No. 1 hater. Christine falls into the same lackluster development trap as Balls, losing the limelight to Alex and Tess, but Day’s performance is still commendable.
Throughout the movie, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the television series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” in which a woman tries stand-up comedy after being left by her husband. “Is This Thing On?” aims for something very similar in this regard, but the emotional depth is what makes it such a refreshing (but emotionally taxing) watch. It is a raw and dynamic performance that might not go down in the annals of cinema history but is definitely worth two hours of your time — or maybe not. I’ve never been married or divorced, so who am I to say?
