New york city film event: The actor’s third movie as director is a gentle romcom of separation and standup comedy with standout turns from Will Arnett and Laura Dern
Here’s a joke: a male strolls into a bar and, to avoid paying a $15 cover, enroll in an open mic evening. He’s in the middle of a separation and a little high, a walking, middle-aged black rain cloud. He’s never done stand-up before. The punchline? He’s really kinda efficient it– rough around the edges, unpracticed, a little rigid yet, under the glow of the spotlight, able to spin several of his pain into self-deprecating jokes and spontaneous laughs.It aids profoundly that this guy is played by Will Arnett, the gravelly voiced comedian and previous BoJack Horseman who succeeds at masculine sad-sacks with self-flagellating charm. Like Arnett the celebrity podcast host, Arnett’s Alex is self-deprecating, refined, easily if dryly funny– to put it simply, simple to root for, also in the very midlife crisis pursuit of stand-up funny. That’s good information for Bradley Cooper’s most current directorial initiative, Is This Thing On?, which, despite its foregrounding of discovering stand-up, is a lot more a subtle, self-deprecating, eventually charming rom-com between 2 individuals who were wed for 20 years.
Source: The Guardian