Is This Thing On? – Review

Release Date – 30th January 2026, Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 1 minute, Director – Bradley Cooper

Trying to cope with the divorce process, Alex (Will Arnett) finds himself turning to stand-up to get into a bar for free, getting a kick from it he grows his confidence for comedy and rebuilding his relationship with wife Tess (Laura Dern).

Loosely inspired by the life of British comedian John Bishop, Is This Thing On? appears to be very loosely inspired indeed. Basing events in New York City we follow finance-based Alex (Will Arnett) amidst the process of separating from his wife Tess (Laura Dern). One night whilst trying to get into a bar to drown his sorrows, and without the $15 entry fee, he puts his name down for an open mic slot to get in for free. There an outpouring of his recent weeks unfurls into the mic, with a couple of attempts at jokes and scattered chuckles dotted throughout the stilted, improvised routine.

It’s during the drawn out view of this first routine, as the camera pushes up against Arnett’s face against an almost silent response it gets, that the film makes clear its tone and pacing. Whilst going in expecting a film with more comedic beats the overall tone of the film leans largely dramatic, especially amongst the very slow pacing from start to finish. One thing for Bradley Cooper’s latest, brought to him by Arnett after working a bit on the screenplay with Mark Chappell, after hearing Bishop’s story (with Bishop receiving a co-story credit) during a chance meeting, is that it certainly seems to take its time. Which perhaps highlights the feeling that the director doesn’t quite seem to be as invested in this particular project than previous features A Star Is Born and Maestro.

That comes through quite often with a slightly semi-detached feeling from certain aspects behind the camera, despite Cooper also appearing on-screen as attempted comic-relief best friend character ‘Balls’. There’s a watchable nature to this particular film from the director, but nothing that quite rises above that as Alex’s confidence for stand-up grows, and starts to lightly inspire him to try and fix things with Tess.

Thus, a set of shifts in their relationship start to unfold, largely in the second hour, which don’t always feel as if they click. Despite good individual performances from Dern and Arnett I never quite found myself fully buying into their relationship. especially the course that it starts to take as they begin to properly talk again with conflicting conversations. The stand-up scenes certainly still have an effect as Alex uses them to make sense of what’s in his mind, and come to terms with where his life appears to be going. He’s told by other comics that he may not be good at stand-up, but he’s at least funny and should therefore keep going, even if his family (including parents Christine Ebersole and a wonderful but rarely used Ciarán Hinds) don’t know about any of it.

There’s a slight feeling of American stand-up to the film overall. Where the joke, or in this case point, tends to be repeated two or three times, just with slightly different wording, as if being explained without the person telling it seemingly realising it. As if the joke itself is just another layer of set-up to the explanation and repetition of it. Is This Thing On? doesn’t quite repeat itself but certainly feels as if it has to explain its point a couple of times in the overly slow pacing of the narrative. It makes it feel that bit more drawn out, and not entirely solid. What’s there is watchable but, much like Alex’s early stand up, gets a scattered response with a slight feeling of detachment as part of the act.

While watchable Is This Thing On? struggles to fully engage with its overly slow pacing and need for a couple more laughs here and there. Arnett and Dern give good performances, even if their characters’ relationship doesn’t quite hit in the somewhat detached feeling of the film.