Is This Thing On? is much more about a relationship than it is about comedy, which is probably a good thing, given how difficult it is to make movies about stand-up. Fictional comics on screen tend to skew toward being tortured truth-tellers or delusional sociopaths or both, but Alex Novak, played by Will Arnett, is neither. He’s a finance guy who recently split from his wife of 20 years, and who stumbles into an open mic night on a whim while trying to escape the silence of the one-bedroom Manhattan rental he lives in on his own. While he doesn’t bomb that spontaneous first attempt, he also doesn’t display the raw, Mrs. Maisel-like aptitude that leads to a manager chasing him down the street afterward wanting to make him a star. Alex just finds talking about his life to a crowd of strang

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