Review: In 'Is This Thing On?' a dumped dad finds a new chapter in stand-up. His wife's a fan

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Therapy often gets mined for comedy but we don’t often see comedy treated as sincere therapy.“Is This Thing On?” from director and co-writer Bradley Cooper, makes the case that glum dad Alex (Will Arnett), new to Splitsville after he and his wife of 20 years, Tess (Laura Dern), mutually agree to separate, may have figured out an ideal coping mechanism by signing up for open mic night.Not that we see this by-day finance guy reject professional help in favor of some untapped passion.

(Vamping for five minutes in front of strangers negates the cover charge.) But in bringing his marital woes to the stage and getting some chuckles, Alex believes he’s hit upon something: a talking cure that comes with a fresh identity, new friends, an acceptable level of risk and a way out of unhappiness.It’s such a frisky, alluring idea for a character study — meeting failure with the potential for more failure (and night after night to boot) — that when the movie proves to actually be about whether the marriage can be saved, instead of the granular, temperamental world of stand-up newbies, it almost feels like a bait and switch.Fortunately, the divorce saga is interesting too, featuring Dern at her best, and is plenty intelligent about the nuances of couples who have built something solid (stable lives, nice 10-year-old twin boys, etc.) at the same time they’ve grown apart.

“Is This Thing On?” is that rarity: a perfectly worthy dramedy that sometimes feels off because it’s trying to cram two good movies into one.Entertainment & Arts The confidence comes from Cooper, who, after only two films in the director’s chair (“A Star Is Born,” “Maestro”), has shown himself to be not only a powerful chronicler of artistic lives but especially couples in the showbiz sphere.

This time, he tantalizes us with the milieu of nightclub self-expression and a group of regular amateu...