Movie review

Will Arnett looks for laughter amid divorce in Is This Thing On?

Will Arnett in Is This Thing On?.

Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Jason McDonald

With 12 Oscar nominations in the past 12 years in multiple categories, Bradley Cooper has turned into not only an acclaimed actor, but also a touted filmmaker. Given that pedigree, it might be difficult to remember that he first gained recognition as a comedy star in movies like Wedding Crashers, Yes Man, and The Hangover series. For his latest directorial effort, he has married comedy with drama in Is This Thing On?.

Unlike the previous two films he directed, Cooper only has a supporting role, ceding the lead to Will Arnett. Arnett plays Alex Novak, who, as the film begins, is starting the process of divorce from his wife of 20 years, Tess (Laura Dern). Forced to move to a depressing apartment in New York City and only getting limited time with his two kids, Alex finds the unexpected outlet of stand up comedy when he signs up for open mic night at the famous Comedy Cellar.

The film follows Alex as he continues to pursue comedy while still having to see Tess on a regular basis, thanks to a shared custody agreement and get-togethers with friends like Balls & Christine (Cooper and Andra Day) and Stephen & Geoffrey (real life couple Sean Hayes and Scott Icenogle). While the comedy serves as a form of counseling for Alex, truly moving on proves more difficult than expected.

The film, co-written by Cooper with Arnett and Mark Chappell, is loosely based on the real-life story of British comedian John Bishop, so one of the biggest things they needed to get right was the comedy itself. Alex’s marital situation lends his comedy more of a confessional style than actual jokes, and his evolution in that space is done well. Shooting in the actual Comedy Cellar and populating the club with real comedians like Amy Sedaris, Jordan Jensen, Reggie Conquest, and more gives those scenes an extra dose of realism.

As if to underscore the personal and emotional nature of the story, Cooper and cinematographer Matthew Libatique make liberal use of closeups with handheld cameras. The camera is constantly moving around and often seems to be right in the actors’ faces, something that is most noticeable when Alex is performing. As if the stories Alex was telling weren’t intimate enough, having Arnett's entire face fill the frame forces the audience to pay attention to what his character is saying.

If there is something to knock about the film, it’s a lack of dramatic stakes. While there’s natural tension between Alex and Tess due to the divorce, it’s way less than in a movie like, say, Marriage Story. There’s also a sneaking suspicion that Cooper was just looking to have fun with the film, casting himself as the comic sidekick and working with good friends like Arnett and Hayes. If ever there was a good hang divorce movie, this is it.

Arnett rarely gets to be in movies, much less as the lead, but he ably embodies this somewhat dramatic part. It helps that he’s given a great scene partner like Dern, who knows when to dial her acting up or down for a particular situation. Cooper and Day are also good despite their story being slightly superfluous, and Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds as Alex’s parents lend the film some extra gravitas.

Is This Thing On? is a much different type of film from Cooper’s first two directorial efforts, A Star is Born and Maestro, and it’s nice to see the filmmaker offer something new. It has a relatable story for anyone who has ever been married while offering an element of uniqueness with someone discovering an undiscovered skill late in life.

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Is This Thing On? opens wide in theaters on January 9.

Movie Review

New film I Want Your Sex somehow makes kinky activity boring

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in I Want Your Sex.

Writer/director Gregg Araki has been making provocative movies for nearly 40 years, releasing his debut - Three Bewildered People in the Night - in 1987. Most of them have had plotlines that revolved around sex in one way or another, and for his latest - his first film in 12 years - he’s putting it right there in the title, I Want Your Sex.

Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is an aimless twenty-something who can’t even afford the rent for his apartment with best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). Thankfully, he finds a job at the gallery of artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), who is open with her sexuality both in her artwork and in her day-to-day life. That soon includes Elliot, whom she convinces to enter into a dominant-submissive relationship with her, with sessions taking place both at work and her home.

Elliot, who’s in a going-nowhere coupling with Minerva (Charli XCX), is more than willing to participate, both because it lets him feel something he doesn’t get normally and because Erika offers a perspective on sex that’s much different from people of his generation. But as he gets in deeper with her, he starts to lose a sense of himself, going down a path in which he finds himself talking to police detectives Zem (Johnny Knoxville) and Zola (Margaret Cho).

Araki does his level best to make I Want Your Sex into a broad comedy, and early on it seems as if he might succeed. The deadpan way that sexual objects appear in the film (a penis-shaped rug in Elliot and Apple’s apartment, a vagina artwork with chewed gum as the medium) make for amusing sight gags. He also makes Elliot the bewildered other in multiple twosomes, with Minerva being the funniest, as she’s way more interested in studying than his ham-fisted attempts at sex.

It’s clear that Araki wants the film to be a commentary on the generational differences about sex, but he fumbles his own idea. It starts with an on-the-nose conversation between Erika and Elliot, and continues with the various dalliances, which seem to be more about making Elliot look and feel ridiculous than giving true insight. Their encounters certainly open his mind about what sex can be, but their one-note nature makes them repetitive and frankly boring, odd considering the acts in which the two engage.

The uninspired storytelling makes the 90-minute film drag way more than it should. Araki includes a few other characters to try to vary the tone of the film, including gallery workers Zap (Mason Gooding) and Vikktor (Daveed Diggs), but their early promise yields little results. The framing device of Elliot’s interview with the detectives never works, especially because Araki completely neuters the personalities of Cho and Knoxville for seemingly no good reason.

The cast as a whole goes to waste. Hoffman is showing the promise of his late father (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and even though he’s appealing here, the material pulls him down. Wilde just made her own provocative movie about sex (The Invite), and this one pales in comparison despite her heightened performance. Wonders, Charli XCX, and Gooding are all young stars who deserve to be showcased much better than they are in this film.

A film called I Want Your Sex is announcing itself as daring and alluring, but this film contains almost none of those qualities. Instead, it’s a slog that only occasionally has something interesting to show or say, mostly relying on the power of its actors to hold viewers’ attention - and failing at even that.

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I Want Your Sex is now playing in select theaters.