Film Review: Is This Thing On?

Is This Thing On?
Director: Bradley Cooper
Lea Pictures, Archery Pictures
In Theaters: 01.09.2026

When Bradley Cooper first stepped behind the camera for A Star Is Born in 2018, it seemed that a star was born, and everyone, myself included, was going Gaga over the arrival of the next great actor-director. It landed him a high-profile vehicle with high expectations in the 2023 Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro; instead of cementing his reputation as a master, it hit a few too many false notes and was seen as a vanity piece. So for Is This Thing On?, Cooper’s third feature as director, he’s chosen to focus on a different leading man and to prove that his career is no joke.

Alex Novak (Will Arnett, Arrested Development, The Lego Batman Movie) is a middle-aged New Yorker drifting through the carefully managed calm of an amicable divorce. He and his ex-wife Tess (Laura Dern, Jurassic Park, Marriage Story) share custody of their two sons, maintaining a cooperative routine that suggests closure while quietly avoiding the deeper emotional fallout. Almost on a dare to himself, Alex steps onto the stage at the Comedy Cellar, where stand-up comedy becomes a new outlet for the thoughts he can’t voice at home. As he begins shaping his experiences into material, the attention he receives onstage starts to bleed into his personal life, unsettling the fragile balance he shares with Tess. Meanwhile, Tess is navigating her own transition. Reclaiming space for herself after years of compromise, she begins redefining her identity beyond marriage and motherhood, exploring new relationships and professional ambitions. Alex’s growing reliance on comedy — and his habit of turning shared history into jokes — forces Tess to confront what parts of their past still belong to both of them. As co-parenting routines strain and emotional boundaries blur, both Alex and Tess are pushed to reckon with what it truly means to move forward, separately yet still deeply intertwined.

Cooper has gone with a significantly more understated style this time, with a lot less emphasis on money shots and glamour and more on getting right in there with the characters and creating a sense of intimacy. The screenplay, which is loosely based on the life of British comedian John Bishop and written by Cooper, Arnett and Mark Chappell (See How They Run), is well constructed, and the dialogue has a wonderfully natural quality to it. It’s hard to escape the comparison to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in this story of a divorcee turning to stand-up comedy, but it’s best not to think too much about it. The two are quite different tonally, with Is This Thing On? going for naturalistic and grounded rather than sharply funny. In fact, Alex never comes off as a great comedian. He may not even be a particularly good one, but he keeps getting up there, and that in and of itself makes him interesting. Cooper nicely captures the quiet complexities of post-divorce life and midlife reinvention. Even when certain beats are predictable, the film’s charming look at the many aspects of human relationships keeps it engaging, offering a thoughtful exploration of identity, love and the small, messy triumphs of starting over. 

Arnett brings a vulnerable, awkward charm to Alex, capturing the uncertainty of a man rediscovering himself in midlife. As an obsessive fan of Arrested Development back in its prime, I had just about reached the conclusion that Arnett would never shake the persona of Gob Bluth to truly prove himself as an actor with range and understated nuance, and I’m happy to be proven wrong. That being said, it’s the ever-reliable Dern who makes the film with her performance as a woman unapologetically trying to find herself again. Dern brings both the resilience and quiet longing that come with navigating life after divorce that’s fascinating to watch.

Cooper is amusing but at times intrusive in a supporting role as Balls, a perennially immature struggling actor and stoner who is Alex’s best friend. The choice to step back and let Arnett play the lead was a great one, and it was necessary to combat the image that Cooper has picked up as a bit self-obsessed. I do have to question whether forcing interludes with an unnecessary character that at times sidetrack the movie was the best way to prove that he doesn’t have to be the center of attention, and as great an actor as he is, I would have preferred that he not appear in the film at all. Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holliday) is far more interesting as Tess’s friend Christine, who bears a lot of hostility toward Alex, and the one-on-one scenes between Day and Arnett are terrific.

Is This Thing On? is a strong entry in Cooper’s filmography, and even if it’s not making a big splash in awards buzz, it further establishes that he’s here to stay as a filmmaker and a director, with whom other actors will want to collaborate. It’s a thoughtful and heartfelt film that’s well worth checking out. —Patrick Gibbs 

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