Is This Thing On? — A captivating ensemble piece

Is This Thing On? (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R for sexual candor, drug use and frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Relationships, like laptops, sometimes need to hit Reset.

 

Director Bradley Cooper’s thoughtful, unhurried character study opens on a close-up of Alex Novak (Will Arnett), present solely in body, as a parent at a school activity being thoroughly enjoyed by a gaggle of kids that includes adolescent sons Felix (Blake Kane) and Jude (Calvin Knegten).

 

At one point, as their marriage unravels, Alex (Will Arnett) is surprised by the intensity
with which Tess (Laura Dern) angrily laments missing the happier, more
spontaneous person that he once was.

Alex scarcely pays attention, his head leaning against a wall, eyes staring into nonethingness, expression a blend of disinterest, resignation and helplessness.

He knows — as we soon learn — that this is the last such event he and wife Tess (Laura Dern) will attend as a couple. “This isn’t working,” they’ve mutually agreed ... “this” being the American dream of a home, two kids, two lovably large dogs (Charlie and Lucy) and a successful career (his days occupied by something “in finance”).

 

The unspoken middle-age crossroads finds them flailing.

 

Alex soon will move into an apartment, as a “trial separation,” but they haven’t told anybody yet: not their friends, not his parents, and certainly not their sons. This school event, followed by a regular game night with friends — Christine (Andra Day) and the aptly nicknamed Balls (Cooper); and Stephen (Sean Hayes) and Geoffrey (Scott Icenogle) — will be Alex and Tess’ final hurrah.

 

The group conversation is lively; Alex occasionally smiles and nods, but he clearly isn’t paying attention. He isn’t present in the moment. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique favors tight close-ups, which amplify Arnett’s vacuous, forlorn expression.

 

Balls — typically late to arrive, typically stoned — trips on a carpet coming in, dumping an entire carton of milk.

 

“Don’t cry over spilt milk,” Tess says (a line that’s a bit too on the nose). It becomes clear that her cheerfulness is a pose that occasionally evaporates, exposing ... something. Disappointment? Anger? Certainly not relief.

 

All this aside, during the next few days Alex and Tess are sensitive to their sons’ reactions and needs; both boys, in their feature acting debuts, deliver heartfelt and refreshingly natural performances under Cooper’s careful guidance.

The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday: A missed opportunity

The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated R, for strong drug content, nudity, sexual candor, violence, lynching images and considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang

J. Edgar Hoover has a lot to answer for.

 

He’s name-checked but never actually seen in director Lee Daniels’ harrowing study of jazz chanteuse Billie Holiday’s final tempestuous decade, available via Hulu. But Hoover’s spirit hovers over an early back-room meeting that includes Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Randy Davison), Roy Cohn (Damian Joseph Quinn), Congressman John E. Rankin (Robert Alan Beuth), Congressman J. Parnell Thomas (Jeff Corbett) and a gaggle of other sclerotic, racist martinets determined to make America safe for their wealthy white friends and colleagues.

 

Despite having been assured by her attorney that she'll be sent to a rehab hospital,
Billie Holiday (Andra Day) is horrified to hear the judge sentence her to "a year and a day"
at West Virginia's Alderson Federal Prison Camp.

By — in this case — removing Holiday from the equation.

 

Not a difficult task, given that her well-publicized heroin habit dovetails nicely with the “war on drugs” championed ruthlessly by U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund, much too young for this key role).

 

The concern — a primary focus of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ screenplay, adapted from a chapter in journalist Johann Hari’s non-fiction dissection of the war on drugs, Chasing the Scream — is that Holiday’s signature song, “Strange Fruit,” is “stirring up the masses” (Black and white, it should be mentioned).

 

And, Lord knows, we can’t have that.

 

Daniels’ film is anchored by star Andra Day’s all-in, absolutely mesmerizing portrayal of Holiday: as astonishing an impersonation as could be imagined, even more so given that this is Day’s starring debut. And yes, to anticipate the obvious question: She does all of her own singing … and her replication of Holiday’s ragged, whiskey-soaked, gravel-on-grit delivery is equally impressive.

 

That said, Day isn’t similarly well served by Daniels’ slow, clumsy film, or by some of the odd narrative choices in Parks’ script: most notably a weird framing device involving flamboyantly gay radio journalist Reginald Lord Devine (Leslie Jordan, as a wholly fictitious character), which sets up the flashback that bounces us to February 1947. 

 

It’s a celebratory evening, with Holiday performing before an enthusiastic sell-out crowd at New York’s Café Society, the country’s first racially integrated nightclub. The audience includes Holiday’s friend and occasional lover, Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne); her husband Jimmy Monroe (Erik LaRay Harvey); and worshipful ex-soldier Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes).

 

Backstage, we meet Holiday’s loyal family unit: stylist Miss Freddy (Miss Lawrence); hairdresser Roslyn (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), also charged with caring for Billie’s beloved dogs; trumpeter — and frequent heroin partner — Joe Guy (Melvin Gregg); and saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young (Tyler James Williams, all grown up from his TV days in Everybody Hates Chris).

 

The care and attention they pay each other is genuinely touching, throughout the entire film. They’re far more attentive and compassionate than husband Jimmy: merely one of many examples, as we’ll see, of Holiday’s lamentable taste in men.