| Bradley Cooper’s latest, Is This Thing On?, feels more like a Noah Baumbach film due to its intimacy, Laura Dern and comedic handling of emotional (im)maturity: the end of a marriage. While this is meant as a compliment, perhaps it’s too early or just not possible to define what does or doesn’t feel like a Bradley Cooper film. Either way he delivers a small film with limited focus but universal impact, a profoundly moving and enjoyable piece about relationships and the people in them. | | 2025
Directed by: Bradley Cooper
Screenplay by: Will Arnett & Mark Chappell, and Bradley Cooper
Starring: Will Arnett, Laura Dern
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In what hopefully will become his career-defining performance, Will Arnett stars as Alex, a lonely, middle-aged man, getting a divorce. It was a mutual divorce, neither of them were happy, they both knew it, so they called it. He has friends, well kind of, he and his wife had friends, but now they’re mostly her friends. He has a job, but all we know is that he works in finance, he doesn’t hate it, but it also doesn’t consume him, it’s not his personality. In fact, he needs a personality. This may sound dreadful, but we get to the point quickly. He needs something to do, something that is just his, so he walks into an open mic comedy club and walks right onto stage, with zero jokes, zero preparation, but with something that most people argue is at the heart of comedy: honesty and vulnerability.
While Alex is slowly starting to understand himself again through stand-up comedy, he now has a confidence and a purpose to his life that he didn’t before. On the flip side, is Tess (Laura Dern). As much as they both say the divorce is mutual, it was obviously Tess’s idea. She’s type A, very in control and thinking the divorce will be the first step in her new awakening. It took her a lot longer than Alex to become happy again. But Tess has a background that makes her a very compelling character: she’s a former Olympic champion, professional volleyball player who was at the top of her sport until she aged out.
It's through Tess’s backstory and a conversation the pair has that actually gets to the heart of why their marriage collapsed, why they were unhappy, and even though they don’t know how to solve it in that moment, the film gave a clarity to its characters so sharp and insightful that it sets itself above all other relationship dramedies. Tess loved playing, Alex loved supporting her, but when Tess stopped playing, she lost a fundamental part of herself but as with all super competitive athletes, she can’t admit any weakness, so threw herself into being a mother, and slowly let depression take over, Alex didn’t know how to help her, so naturally everybody blames him.
Of course Alex’s stand up comedy works as a form of therapy, talking out his problems out loud, but the great thing about Alex, he already knows this. Most people in his life can’t understand why he’s suddenly becoming a stand-up comedian, but he’s not becoming a stand-up comedian, he just needed to do something to help him unlock another aspect of who he is.
There’s another aspect to this film which I love even though it’s not explored in any greater depth, but since it leads to a thoroughly entertaining ending, it doesn’t need any more depth. The opening scene is one of Alex’s and Tess’s friends talking about their 17-year-old son and how non-chalant or accepting he is about the doom and gloom of the state of the world. The final scene is a group of pre-teens performing Under Pressure.
This can be a hard movie to get into. The editing at the beginning is choppy, scenes that don’t flow very well into the next, and there’s a lot of backstory withheld. The more it just dives into these characters, the funnier, more entertaining and more insightful the movie becomes. It’s funny, emotionally-moving and more uplifting than it is sad.
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