Director: Bradley Cooper
Some marriages don't end with a slammed door — they dissolve slowly, in small silences, and that quiet unraveling is the subject of Bradley Cooper's 2025 dramedy "Is This Thing On?"
What is Is This Thing On? about?
Alex is hitting middle age just as his marriage to Tess starts to come apart, and rather than collapse under the weight of it, he drifts toward New York's stand-up comedy scene looking for something — anything — that still feels like his own. Tess, meanwhile, is reckoning with everything she gave up to hold the family together, and she is done pretending those sacrifices didn't cost her something. As the couple works out how to co-parent and how to be separate people again, the film asks a harder question underneath the obvious one: whether love, once it changes shape, can still count as love. It's a story about identity as much as it is about romance, told through the messy, half-lit stages between a marriage and whatever comes after it.
Cast & crew
Will Arnett and Laura Dern anchor the story as Alex and Tess, playing the emotional back-and-forth of a marriage in transition with a mix of humor and restraint. Bradley Cooper, who also directs, appears in the ensemble alongside Andra Day, Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds, Sean Hayes, and Amy Sedaris, giving the comedy-club backdrop a lived-in, specific feel.
Context & significance
"Is This Thing On?" marks a directing outing for Bradley Cooper, shot in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it leans into the New York comedy circuit as more than just scenery — the stage becomes a place where Alex tries to rebuild a sense of self after his marriage stops working. The 2025 release runs 121 minutes and mixes comedy with genuinely felt drama rather than playing either extreme for long.
Where & how to watch
You can stream "Is This Thing On?" on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles available, making it easy for Farsi-speaking viewers to follow along. This page is free to browse without an account, and watching the film only takes a quick, free K-Time login. The whole experience — menus, search, subtitles — is built with the Iranian diaspora audience in mind.