Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? is a film about what lingers after the end of a marriage – not the explosive rupture, but the quieter aftermath where two people must confront who they’ve become once the life they built together begins to dissolve. Rather than framing divorce as a dramatic turning point, Cooper is more interested in the emotional debris it leaves behind: the habits, the silences, the identities that no longer quite fit. It’s a deeply intimate film, one that resists easy catharsis in favor of emotional observation, and in doing so becomes Cooper’s most restrained and emotionally confident work as a filmmaker to date.
Will Arnett delivers what is arguably the most surprising performance of his career as Alex Novak, a man sleepwalking through middle age after the quiet disintegration of his marriage to Tess (Laura Dern). Inspired loosely by a real-life story of a man processing marital collapse through stand-up comedy, the film positions Alex’s tentative move into New York’s comedy scene not as a reinvention fantasy, but as an act of emotional survival. The comedy clubs function as confessional spaces – places where vulnerability is tested live, often failing spectacularly, before it finds its footing. Arnett plays these moments without vanity or self-protection; the bombs sting, the small wins feel accidental, and the act of standing on stage becomes less about punchlines than about learning how to speak honestly again.
Dern, meanwhile, is quietly formidable as Tess, a former elite athlete who has spent years submerging her own ambitions in service of family life. Cooper wisely refuses to frame her as either antagonist or emotional obstacle. Instead, Tess’s journey unfolds in parallel to Alex’s, as she reconnects with the physical discipline and clarity that once defined her. Dern’s performance is all controlled strength and simmering interiority, capturing the particular ache of a woman who realizes she hasn’t failed her marriage – she’s simply outgrown the version of herself she was asked to maintain.
Cooper also appears on screen in a supporting role as Balls, Alex’s longtime friend, and while the character initially reads as comic relief, the performance is far more purposeful than it first appears. Balls is deliberately off-kilter, an emotional jester whose eccentricity masks hard-earned wisdom. Cooper plays him with a looseness that contrasts sharply with Alex’s guardedness, and in doing so offers one of the film’s quiet thematic anchors: the idea that clarity doesn’t always come from control, but from learning to sit comfortably with confusion. It’s a small role, but one that subtly reframes the film’s emotional logic.
The supporting cast enriches the film’s emotional ecosystem rather than distracting from it. Andra Day is particularly striking as Christine, Tess’s close friend, bringing a raw energy that hints at a parallel marital unease simmering just beneath the surface. Her performance adds texture to the film’s broader examination of long-term relationships, suggesting that stability and happiness are not always synonymous. Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds, as Alex’s parents, offer warmth and friction in equal measure, grounding the film in generational perspective without drifting into sentimentality.
Formally, Is This Thing On? reflects Cooper’s increasing confidence behind the camera. Working once again with cinematographer Matthew Libatique (A Star Is Born, Maestro), Cooper adopts a handheld intimacy and a boxier aspect ratio that keeps the audience uncomfortably close to the characters. The camera feels like an active participant – observing, drifting, occasionally intruding – mirroring Alex’s own sense of emotional exposure. Cooper’s decision to operate the camera himself at times only heightens that sense of immediacy, reinforcing the film’s refusal to offer emotional distance or spectacle.
What ultimately distinguishes Is This Thing On? is its empathy. This is not a film about winning someone back or finding a new version of happiness that neatly replaces the old one. It’s about recalibration, about learning how love, commitment, and identity might evolve rather than disappear. Cooper isn’t interested in tidy resolutions or grand romantic gestures. Instead, he finds meaning in the awkward pauses, the half-finished sentences, and the fragile act of trying again, not just with another person, but with yourself.
In its quiet, emotionally literate way, Is This Thing On? suggests that staying loose – emotionally, creatively, existentially – may be the bravest act of all.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Is This Thing On? is screening in Australian theatres from February 5th, 2026.
