Is This Thing On?

Is This Thing On? Is the best film Bradley Cooper has made as a director, and it is not even close. This is because the film is the first time he has gotten out of his own way entirely and allowed characters to become the true center of the production. Loosely based on the life of British comedian John Bishop, the film tells the story of Alex Novak, a financier who is in the middle of a divorce from Tess, his wife of more than twenty years.

Will Arnett and Laura Dern play the couple, bringing surprising layers to characters that too often, in other films, have become cliches. Andra Day and Bradley Cooper have small, pivotal roles as a married couple they are friends with, as do Sean Hayes and Scott Icenogle. Also in the cast are Christine Ebersole and Cirian Hinds, as Alex’s parents, along with Amy Sedaris as the MC at Alex’s main comedy club.

These are characters with individual traits that make them instantly recognizable, and while audiences are trained to expect “types”, the people here defy such expectations through performance and writing. Christine and Balls, the Day and Cooper characters, are a pair of substance loving parents to a recent college entrant. Balls, a klutzy, oblivious struggling actor, is charmingly naïve, while his wife is bright, yet viciously acidic in her assessments of others. Ebersole plays Marilyn as honest to a fault, perhaps a bit too devoted to her former daughter in law, and not quite respectful enough of her husband, Jan’s, ability to understand the world around him. Jan, it turns out, is a deeper thinker and more emotionally complex figure than his introduction lets on.

Courtesy 20th Century

Each of these performers play their roles with a lived intensity that allows the audience to buy in to the reality of the events. The relationships between each feel real and complicated, full of a range of emotions. You can feel the history here, which means that as events proceed, there is gravity. In this film, the comedy and drama flow from one another, and the depths of emotional truth resonate because of this intertwining.

It helps that Bradley Cooper, and his cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, have shot the film with an active, knowing and, at times, documentarian approach. When Alex first descends into the stage area of the comedy club, the camera follows him, and the sound echoes around him, allowing the viewer to be fully immersed. The camera is set tight, here, directly over his shoulder and slightly behind, like a crew following a rock star out on stage for a grand musical performance.

During other scenes, the camera focuses on small details, emphasizing the small within the bigger picture. This helps keep the work fresh, vibrant, and in motion. It also allows the performances to achieve other dimensions, without ever becoming distracting. The film, being all about character, requires the performances to shine, which they do, regardless of who is involved. Yet, those performances would mean little without the script.

Courtesy 20th Century

That script, by Cooper, Arnett and Mark Chappell, based on a story by Arnett, Chappel and John Bishop, is wise and tender, without losing the acid edge which gives it a certain life. As someone who had a dear friend that was a standup comedian, the depiction of the grind and the way in which comedians interact with one another, was extraordinarily on point. As a human being, everything else, about relationships, children, parents and friends, resonated with the truth contained therein.

By the time of the film’s well-earned conclusion, you will want to spend more time with these people, but you will also be satisfied that this is the best place to stop. It is a film that, like a good joke, knows when to stop. It covers its many themes of anxiety, distance, love, anger, resentment, humor, community and how it feels to question everything you thought meant something, with both care and skill. It is a film that may work more for people inclined to trying something new late in life, and taking personal, artistic risks, or for those who have knowledge of comedy. It will absolutely work for those who have ever been through any sort of breakup of a long-term commitment, and this is where the film best balances the bitter with the sweet. To say more would be to betray the experience. Instead, go and see one of the year’s best films.

IS THIS THING ON? IS NOW PLAYING IN THEATERS EVERYWHERE!