As a director, Bradley Cooper ran the risk of turning incurably pretentious. His filmmaking debut, the 2018 version of “A Star Is Born,” hit big with critics and audiences thanks in large part to his and Lady Gaga’s excellent performances, but there’s a self-seriousness to it that I personally never embraced. “Maestro,” Cooper’s sophomore feature where he controversially cast himself as Leonard Bernstein, was as blatant awards bait as could be — technically stunning, but trying too hard and often just boring.

If nothing else, Cooper deserves credit for turning off the pretension for “Is This Thing On?” He knows he’s not winning awards or making some grand artistic statement with this smaller scale dramedy, shot over just 33 days and edited quickly in time for a premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. Cooper rewrote the original script by Will Arnett and Mark Chappell, loosely based on the real life story of British comedian John Bishop and reworked for the New York comedy scene, but wisely did not cast himself in the lead role like he has for his past two movies, instead taking on a funny supporting role while letting his long-time friend Arnett play the main character Alex Novak. Laura Dern, another long-time friend of Cooper’s, plays Alex’s not-quite-ex-wife Tess, and the film seems first and foremost an excuse for friends to have some low-stakes fun with each other.

Whether it’s as fun for the viewer is another matter. “Is This Thing On?” is an easy watch, getting by on charm while touching on something psychologically interesting in its portrait of a troubled marriage between characters with different attitudes toward unhappiness. It’s never boring, but also never stunning — a success on its own unambitious terms that I nonetheless expect to mostly forget about.

While casting Laura Dern in a film about divorce inevitably brings up memories of “Marriage Story,” Alex and Tess’ separation has been relatively undramatic in comparison to the wall-punching fights between Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson’s characters in that Noah Baumbach movie. Their marital issues aren’t the result of any particular bad actions on either party’s end so much as just generally bad communication and an inability to support one another through depression.

Alex finds an outlet to vent his frustrations by accident, signing up to participate in an open mic night just to avoid a cover charge. As a first-time stand-up comedian, he’s not good at it, but he gets some laughs and, most importantly, feels good enough about it to keep trying out more shows. Bradley Cooper’s direction and Matthew Libatique’s cinematography are decidedly unstylized compared to their past two collaborations, with just one shot in all of “Is This Thing On?” you could describe as “showy,” but they do make some interesting choices in framing. By keeping Alex’s performances entirely in close-ups, we’re left to hear rather than see the audience’s reactions — with the exception of one particular audience member at one particular performance, whose reaction matters a lot.

The downside of a stand-up movie where our main character is bad at stand-up is that it’s naturally not gonna be very funny. The group of more experienced comedians Alex befriends includes some successful stand-ups for those in the know, including Chloe Radcliffe, Reggie Conquest, and Jordan Jensen, but we only get the briefest glimpses of their acts and relatively little time spent on any of them. The description of comedy as a “safe space” also feels woefully out of touch with how much toxicity there is in the comedy scene — one of the clubs Alex performs at, The Comedy Cellar, is literally responsible for Louis CK’s post-MeToo comeback. Perhaps it’s best not to look at “Is This Thing On?” as a stand-up movie, but rather a divorce movie that happens to include stand-up as central to its story.

While “Is This Thing On?” is largely fairly predictable, something happens in the third act that gives the film a boost of energy and makes the story much more interesting than it’s been up to that point. The central relationship story becomes funnier, and also opens up new room for insight into these characters. While Alex’s non-comedy career in finance never plays a part in the story, Tess’ feelings about having to retire as a star volleyball player to become a mother — and Alex’s own feelings on said retirement — are explored to interesting ends.

The side-story with Alex and Tess’ obnoxious friends, Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Bradley Cooper), pops in and out of the film and gets particularly funny in that final act. These two are the worst people to be around, but they’re funny because of that. Christine Ebersole also gets some laughs as Alex’s mom, who wants to stay friends with Tess, while Ciarán Hinds as Alex’s dad gets one big heartfelt standout scene following one of Alex’s darkest performances.

There’s not much more I can really say about “Is This Thing On?” without getting into spoilers, because there’s not that much I really connected with but not much I really disliked either. There’s not a lot to complain about with this modest film. By being less ambitious than the showmanship of “Maestro,” it can’t fall as flat overall, and that last act is just entertaining enough to make it a decent watch when it comes to streaming. It’s intelligent without being profound, amusing without being hilarious, empathetic without being gut-wrenching. “Cute” is the word I’d use to describe it overall. By nature it’s nothing special, but it’s not bad either.

“Is This Thing On?” made its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 10, and hits theaters on December 19.