You can hear it in the first thirty seconds—an awkward laugh, a bruised ego, a marriage caving in on itself. Is This Thing On?, Bradley Cooper's third directorial outing, doesn't open with fireworks but with the dull thud of recognition. Divorce as punchline. Divorce as tragedy. Divorce as… raw material. And yes, the line—“Oh honey, I had no idea your life was this bad… This is why she threw you out!”—lands like a steel chair in a wrestling match: cruel, funny, maybe a little too true.
Cooper has made a habit of planting himself at the intersection of performance and pain. A Star Is Born made stardom look like a terminal illness. Maestro found genius wrapped in repression. And now, in Is This Thing On?, he hands the mic to Will Arnett as Alex Novak, a man stumbling into middle age and onto the stand-up stage. Laura Dern plays Tess, his estranged wife, navigating co-parenting while tallying the invisible costs of compromise. Together, they craft something rare in American dramedy—marital collapse presented without melodrama or moralizing. Just two people, broken and trying to be funny about it.
The film—loosely inspired by the life of British comedian John Bishop—has a strange confidence, even in this brief first teaser. The rhythm feels jagged, lived-in, refusing to chase easy laughs. Andra Day, Amy Sedaris, Sean Hayes, Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds, Scott Icenogle, even Cooper himself—this is a cast built for texture, not spectacle. Each face in the frame looks like someone with a half-written story.
It helps, of course, that Matthew Libatique is behind the camera. You could almost spot his lenswork blindfolded: the saturated intimacy of Requiem for a Dream, the haunted elegance of Black Swan, the aching glow of A Star Is Born. Here, he leans into naturalism again—soft light, raw interiors, the kind of visuals that make sweat stains and awkward pauses cinematic. Gorgeous. Grating. Gorgeous again.
And let's not skip the festival politics. Cooper's film is bypassing Venice and TIFF, two playgrounds he knows well, in favor of closing the New York Film Festival on October 13, 2025. That's a statement. NYFF isn't about world premieres or Oscar buzz first—it's about New York audiences, who will not hesitate to boo if the rhythm feels false. Risky? Absolutely. But it also signals Cooper's faith that Is This Thing On? is tuned for intimacy, not spectacle.
The release date is already circled: December 19, 2025, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. Which means it'll be jostling for air during the awards-season crush, elbowing between studio juggernauts and prestige hopefuls. Whether it thrives will depend less on box office math than on whether audiences recognize their own fractures in Alex and Tess's story.
So… is this thing on? Judging by the teaser, it's not aiming for belly laughs—it's looking for that uncomfortable chuckle that comes before silence. And silence, in cinema, is where truth tends to sneak in.
What We Learned from the ‘Is This Thing On?' Teaser
Cooper goes intimate, not epic
Instead of another sweeping biopic, Cooper zooms in on the crumbling ecosystem of a marriage.
Will Arnett takes center stage
Known for deadpan comedy, Arnett now steps into the dramatic spotlight as a man fumbling through midlife reinvention.
Laura Dern grounds the chaos
Her Tess doesn't just play foil—she embodies sacrifice, frustration, and reluctant resilience.
NYFF Closing Night isn't casual
Skipping Venice and TIFF positions this film as a quieter, sharper festival bet.
Matthew Libatique delivers again
The cinematography whispers instead of shouts, making everyday spaces ache with intimacy.
