Knock on Wood

As much a midlife crisis dramedy as it is Bradley Cooper’s apology for the pomposity of Maestro, Is This Thing On? could just as accurately be titled, Men Will Literally Start Performing Stand-Up Comedy Instead of Going to Therapy: The Movie.

Cooper’s latest directorial venture follows the newly divorced Alex Novak (Will Arnett) as a pot-brownie-induced haze unwittingly leads him into the Manhattan stand-up comedy scene. Despite his first set coming across more as a sad-dad monologue than a comedic routine, Alex leaves his first encounter with stand-up with an unexpected feeling of catharsis. Alex has no ambitions of becoming the next George Carlin or Dave Chappelle, but he finds a healing comfort in the underbelly of the Comedy Cellar as he explores this newfound hobby.

Is This Thing On? lies somewhere on the spectrum between Judd Apatow and Noah Baumbach as Cooper toes the line between quirky familial drama and genuine laughs. At the center of the whole affair is Arnett, who delivers what feels like a breakout performance despite his already decades-long career as a highly successful comedic actor. Arnett’s performance is something of a revelation — in a time where many other big stars have trouble escaping that air of celebrity when they try to step into everyman roles, Arnett slips into his role seamlessly and is reason enough to recommend the film.

Arnett and Laura Dern, portraying his now ex-wife, offer a surprisingly honest depiction of falling in and out of love, and of unexpectedly falling back into love once more. Alex’s entrance into the world of stand-up comedy never feels particularly plausible, but it doesn’t have to for his emotional journey to ring true. Matthew Libatique, a cinematographer best known for his Oscar-nominated work on films like Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan or Cooper’s own Maestro, provides a refreshing sense of style to the sort of film that we so often see shot with a flat “set the camera down and shoot” sensibility. Libatique’s point of view depicts Alex’s stand-up sets primarily as scenes of tension, providing the film with a legitimately cinematic feel.

The film features an extended stand-up scene for Alex midway through the film (you’ll know it when you see it) that features a delightfully contrived moment of serendipity for our leads. This marks the undeniable high point of the film, but unfortunately, the film never reaches those heights of dramatic tension again. Perhaps the best metaphor for the movie’s failure to ascend to true greatness comes in Cooper’s self-insert role as an actor who has, as he puts it, trouble discerning where his characters end and he begins.

Cooper’s performance and his increasingly pretentious facial hair are undeniably hilarious, providing many of the film’s biggest laughs. Even so, Cooper’s presence is never not a distraction. The entire time Cooper or any of his celebrity friends are on screen, the entire audience turns into the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme, immediately removing you from the grounded reality of the film. Somewhere in Is This Thing On? is a truly excellent 90-minute film, but the story gets bogged down with too much familial and friendship drama that occasionally overstays its welcome.

Is This Thing On? opens in theaters on December 19.