Or: Dis We Finish the Script?
I thought this movie was great when I logged it last night. Now I’m conflicted. I liked it while I was watching it, but the more I tried to write about it, the less I could justify its existence. It kind of fizzled away after the credits.
Four men, all credited on the script, came together to write a female character meant to feel authentic and relatable. I might have loved the movie if Laura Dern had been given a chance to rewrite some of her dialogue, because as it stands, the perspective feels weirdly aloof. Too much of it lands in “women be crazy, am I right?” territory. Dern and Will Arnett both do strong work, but she is working against material that keeps treating her as an idea instead of a person.
The poster/photo choice bothered me too. Having Arnett put up a picture of Dern that does not show her face may work narratively on one level, but it feels like a cheap solution for a mainstream Hollywood movie. It would have been more interesting, and more confounding for him, if the photo looked like another actress and Dern could simply say, “That doesn’t even look like me.”
The bigger issue is that the main plot feels like a beat-for-beat remake of Ghostlight. That movie was hammy and overloaded with coincidences, but it had a stronger reason to exist. It said something true about losing a child, even when the movie itself did not always feel true. Is This Thing On? has truthful pieces, but not enough connective tissue.
Every movie gets one coincidence, but Dern showing up at the exact comedy club where Arnett is performing is painfully contrived. Had it been the fifth date night between her and Peyton Manning’s character — a badly miscast role, by the way — I could have accepted it. As written, I had to invoke the “one coincidence” rule and move on, even though it made no sense.
There are other shortcuts that feel like low-budget writing decisions. Arnett’s sexual conquest is written with almost no texture: foreplay as “I think we should have sex. We are going to have sex,” followed by her leaving for work and telling him not to let the cat out. That is not a character; that is a function. Likewise, we are told another woman will do a magic show for his kids, which sounds like a fun chance to give a supporting character a memorable moment, and then we never see it. It is setup with no payoff — not even a five-second shot.
The frustrating thing is that there is a great idea for a script here, and the central storyline has truth in it. In some ways, the direction could not be better. I love the long takes, the stand-up routines are strong, and Arnett and Dern are surprisingly good with the material they have. But the movie also feels strangely amateur from a production and writing standpoint. This may be one of the rare cases where the dreaded Hollywood producer note would have helped: “Is there enough here to put in a trailer?” I usually hate movies built around that question, but maybe this one needed it. It needed a clearer reason to exist.
Avidavr: Media Reviews 