A pair of mini-toothbrushes. A set of kids’ socks, fresh from the dryer. It’s often the tiniest things in the debris field of a failed relationship that trigger the most pain.
Bradley Cooper clearly believes this, and repeatedly goes for the smaller-scale choice in “Is This Thing On?,” his third feature as director — a deeply felt film about one teetering marriage, and a work whose power sneaks up on you slowly.
And Cooper the director includes Cooper the actor in that strategy, opting to play a secondary role and let his stars, Will Arnett and Laura Dern, shine. Which they certainly do. Rarely does a foundering relationship seem so naturally observed, and so lacking in forced drama or artifice.
Arnett, who co-wrote here, plays Alex Novak, a name that seems to epitomize everyday-ness. Alex is a suburban New York dad who works in finance. His wife Tess (Dern) is a former Olympic volleyball player who’s traded glory on the court for domestic life, running a household of two 10-year old sons — “Irish twins” — and one dog.
The demise of their marriage comes right at the beginning. “We need to call it,” Tess says one night, brushing her teeth. “I think so too,” Alex says, just as sensibly.
Keeping it all amicable, they say nothing to their best friends, Balls (Cooper) and Christine (Andra Day) as they arrive for a “last hurrah” dinner party. In any case, Balls, an actor scraping by on small jobs, sucks up most of the air in the room, what with his copious facial hair and jovial clumsiness (we first meet him falling flat on his face, spilling a large carton of oat milk).
Later, accompanying Tess to her commuter train back to the burbs, Alex almost hops on himself — he forgets he’s now living in the city, on his own. Wandering later through the streets, he tries to stop for a drink at a comedy club. But there’s a $15 cover charge and he doesn’t have cash. The only choice is to put his name on the open mic list.
This is a fictionalized version of the Comedy Cellar, a place Cooper knows well, and where Arnett tried out material for weeks, (Real-life manager Liz Furiati makes an appearance, and comedians Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe and Reggie Conquest play club regulars.) Alex has no idea what to do when he steps up to the mic. He just wanted that drink.
“I think I’m getting a divorce,” he says, to awkward titters, the camera keeping him in tight profile throughout. “What tipped me off is that I’m living in an apartment on my own.”
The story is based on the true tale of Joseph Bishop, a pharmaceutical representative in Manchester, England, who some 25 years ago found himself falling into standup comedy — because, yes, he couldn’t scrape up the cover charge. Bishop, too, was going through a breakup, and found the standup routines a form of therapy.
Alex goes back again, and again. Meanwhile, he and Tess are trying to settle into separate lives. The sadness pops up at odd moments. The act of folding his visiting sons’ laundry makes Alex tear up. The same happens to Tess when, visiting Alex’s apartment one day, she spies the kids’ little light-up toothbrushes in his bathroom.
Alex’s friends and family have differing reactions to news of his unexpected foray into comedy. His mother, a delightful Christine Ebersole, has the best response: “I had no idea your life was so bad!”
But Alex persists, as Bishop did in Manchester, when his wife unwittingly dropped in and witnessed his set. And that happens here, too, as Tess happens to pop in with her date (a volleyball coach played by veteran NFL star Peyton Manning.)
Watching Dern’s face here is like watching weather change, gradually. First, the shock. Then, anger and embarrassment — he’s talking about what it was like to sleep with a new woman.
And then, a faint smile. After all, Alex is saying the whole experience made him miss his wife. The two meet later on the street. Tess, still stunned, nonetheless confesses it was “hot” to see him up there.
It would be churlish to reveal more about what happens to the marriage — except maybe to note that Cooper takes great care to ensure both partners are deserving of our empathy. Maybe that’s why it’s funny, but also poignant, when one chides the other for sleeping with somebody else “in front of our armoire,” which has been retrieved from storage. You kind of understand both sides of it.
Arnett has been thinking about this story for years, and it shows in the nuance he invests in Alex, a loving family man who can’t quite figure out what went wrong. “I don’t know what happened to my marriage,” he tells a room of strangers, an admission heartbreaking in its mundanity.
And Dern, who won an Oscar as a smooth divorce lawyer in “Marriage Story,” projects no such steel here. She, too, isn’t quite sure what she needs, and when offered a choice, can do no better than say: “I’ll think about it.”
Isn’t this, though, probably how most breakups and makeups work: in fits and starts, with people saying things they regret and doubting what it is they want, anyway? We’ll take it, if we get to watch these two actors trying to figure it out.
“Is This Thing On?,” a Searchlight Pictures release, has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language throughout, sexual references and some drug use.” Running time: 120 minutes. Three stars out of four.
