People often griped about Bradley Cooper as both a director and actor: too eager for an Oscar. His films aim for what’s frequently seen as a rather dull type of sophistication. He to play . The list goes on, but you could say Cooper fills a role few other filmmakers these days even think about. He wants to create adult-oriented films that deal with topics people care about—subjects that once brought mature audiences to cinemas. It might be a reworking of a classic tale, like , or a subtle biopic of a talented, controversial figure like Bernstein. Or it could simply be a story about how love can slip away despite your best tries—or, worse, because you didn’t try—like the humble yet moving comedy-drama Is This Thing On? No matter your opinion of Cooper, he keeps making films few others would bother with, acting like a grownup in a world where adults have all but left the movies.
Is This Thing On? starts with an ending. Will Arnett plays Alex, who—as we discover in the film’s opening scene—is separating from his wife of over 20 years, Tess, portrayed by Laura Dern. The pair have two 10-year-old sons—not identical twins, but Irish ones, as Alex later notes—which only makes the breakup tougher. Even so, it feels necessary. Tess appears to be going through the motions of being kind to her husband, yet when they’re with friends, she can’t help shooting the occasional sharp look. At least she has some energy. Alex just seems drained and zoned out, like he can’t believe what’s happening but has neither the drive nor the strength to halt it. You can understand why Tess—who we later learn was a former star athlete, a volleyball champion—might want to escape this cardboard-like man.
Following a particularly tough evening, Alex puts Tess on the train to the couple’s large suburban home outside New York City and strolls past a small bar on his way to his rented city apartment. It looks welcoming; there’s activity inside. He decides to stop for a drink. The bouncer stops him at the door and asks for a $15 cover, unless he’s taking part in the night’s open-mic comedy event. Alex doesn’t want to pay the cover—he says he doesn’t even have the cash—so he signs up to perform instead.
His set isn’t even a proper routine; it’s more a flat recounting of the events that have recently turned his life upside down. “I think I’m getting divorced,” he says hesitantly. “The clue was that I’m living alone in an apartment. And my wife and kids aren’t there.” It’s a strange monologue, but his unsteady delivery makes it land. He’s definitely not a comedian—we only learn he works in finance—but the audience laughs, likely partly out of kindness but also because they relate. What Alex talks about is the kind of thing that could happen to anyone who’s ever been in a relationship or been dumped from one.
Alex keeps returning to the club to perform; it becomes a release for him, and he also finds a community there (portrayed by various performers like Amy Sedaris, Chloe Radcliffe, and Jordan Jensen)—a group that enjoys turning the ordinary things that annoy us or break us into concrete markers of life, things we can laugh about together.
It’s not just that Alex has grown more confident; it’s that he feels alive again, connected to something meaningful—even beyond his family life, which obviously means everything to him. Tess has also lost touch with her former self—because no one is the same person they were yesterday, much less a decade or two ago. Is This Thing On? tells the story of how these two find their way back to each other as the constantly changing people they are.
That might not seem like enough to base a movie on, and it’s true Is This Thing On? is more about subtle undercurrents of emotion than wild, rushing waves. But isn’t that what middle age is mostly about? Reconciling your past self with the mind and body you have now? Cooper is attuned to themes that were common in 1990s and early 2000s films: midlife separations, the pain of waking up every day next to a partner who no longer loves you, the feeling of losing your spark like you lose your reading glasses.
These are somewhat unexciting topics for films. But they also feel vital, and Is This Thing On? somehow casts its own quiet spell. (The screenplay was written by Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell and drew inspiration from the life of John Bishop, a British comedian.) Cooper has a supporting role: he plays Balls, Alex’s closest friend—a self-centered, underemployed actor. He’s also in a relationship—his eye-rolling wife, Christine, is played by Andra Day—and their daily frustrations are fully on show. But their annoyance with each other ends up being their main way of communicating, and it works. Sometimes that’s just how couples are.
Cooper is excellent in this part. Balls only seems to care about chasing his next acting job—he’s overly thrilled about landing a theater role as one of Jesus’ disciples—but he’s also comfortably messy in his own chaotic life. Alex can’t be that way; he’s too fixated on doing everything correctly, even though he’s let Tess down in ways he hasn’t even noticed. Arnett and Dern’s performances here have a quiet, sharp elegance. They depict what happens when two people, supposedly a team, get lost in their own hazy worlds. This is what Cooper is interested in: how do two such people ever find their way back to the warmth in each other? It’s the kind of story made for the intimacy of the cinema and the possibly lost tradition of movie-date night. As goals go, that’s a pretty admirable one.
