Is This Thing On? Unfortunately, Yes

Is This Thing On? is the cinematic equivalent of assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions while fully convinced you do not need an Allen wrench.  What possessed Bradley Cooper to think the world needed more of him behind the camera is beyond me.  The film’s biggest problem is that it has no idea what it wants to be.  It is a hodgepodge of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Marriage Story and The Four Seasons, with an About a Boy-style ending tacked on.  One minute it wants to be tender and observant, the next it wants to be funny.  Spoiler: almost none of it works.  Will Arnett is the best thing in the film as Alex Novak, a soon-to-be-divorced guy who stumbles into stand-up after bluffing his way past a $15 cover charge.  He plays both sadness and comedy with real skill.  He is so good, in fact, that he almost tricks you into thinking this shapeless story is worth sticking with.  Laura Dern also does solid work as Tess Novak, although the script gives her little consistency to work with.  Tess flip-flops from grounded and thoughtful to a walking mood swing.  Meanwhile, Bradley Cooper is awful as “Balls,” which somehow is still not the most embarrassing part of his performance.  Amy Sedaris and Sean Hayes are also technically in this film, though you would be forgiven for missing them since they are given absolutely nothing to do.  The cast is talented but talent alone cannot rescue a movie with no clear story, no emotional payoff and no real sense of what it is trying to say.  What makes it all the more frustrating is that the film carries itself with the smug confidence of something profound, while the stand-up scenes are uniformly terrible.  In a movie that hinges on a character’s comic awakening, the comedy is not witty, not revealing, and not even awkward in an interesting way.  I watched Is This Thing On? after an acquaintance highly recommended it.  He also talks about the Fox Theatre like it’s the Palais Garnier, so needless to say, that friendship is now under review.