After Guadagnino (After the Hunt – opener) and Jarmusch (Father Mother Sister Brother – centerpiece) New York Film Festival’s Artistic Director Dennis Lim has landed the world premiere (October 10th) to Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? as its Closing Night selection. With Rental Family hitting TIFF and Wild Horse Nine being positioned for 2026, this might not be as fruitful of a year for Searchlight Pictures who are coming off a solid double awards campaigns for A Real Pain and A Complete Unknown. Cooper’s A Star is Born (2018) and Maestro (2023) were both launched at the Venice Film Festival so this is either not in that same league or might be a major grab for NYFF. Here’s the description:
In a pair of galvanizing, deeply honest performances, Will Arnett and Laura Dern play Alex and Tess Novak, whose marriage has reached an impasse. With amicable sorrow, the couple—parents of two young boys—mutually agree to split up. Yet in director Bradley Cooper’s keenly observed comic drama, their separation leads to unpredictable midlife self-reckonings, most dramatically in Alex’s wild career pivot to become a confessional stand-up comedian in New York City’s West Village, where he finds new direction and camaraderie. This seemingly outlandish scenario—in a script by Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell inspired by the true story of British comedian John Bishop—is never played for easy laughs, while Cooper uses his penchant for naturalism to give the actors space to find their complicated centers.