While streaming Is This Thing On? on Hulu last night, I found myself wishing that Alex and Tess Novak were my therapy clients.
The film, starring Will Arnett and Laura Dern and directed by Bradley Cooper (who also plays Alex’s brother), opens with a matter-of-fact but consequential decision: the end of a 20-year marriage.
The separation unfolds with a kind of emotional flatness that is, at times, frustrating. Tess’ expression rarely shifts from brow-bending disappointment. Alex comes alive only in an unexpected new arena—stand-up comedy—where he begins to process the marriage and its demise in front of strangers rather than with his wife. The practicalities of their life together are oddly opaque. Alex is frequently dressed in a suit, Tess is a stay-at-home mother, yet Alex’s professional life remains largely invisible, as does any meaningful financial strain. Their beautiful home and the relative ease of their separation exist far outside the constraints most couples face.
And yet, despite these gaps, the film captures something essential: Marriage is difficult, sustained work, even though we are often socialized to imagine it as a lasting state of “happily ever after.”
More strikingly, the story hints at a quieter, less examined truth: Some divorces may not need to happen.
Many absolutely do. But others unfold when two people begin to misattribute their own dissatisfaction—fatigue, depression, a loss of identity—to their partner’s perceived shortcomings.
Watching Alex and Tess, I found myself asking questions that felt less cinematic and more clinical: Why can Alex be so present and emotionally honest on stage, yet so distant at home? Why does Tess wait for a crisis to reengage with a once-vital part of herself—her identity as a coach and former Olympian? Why does Alex seem most drawn to an image of Tess from the past, rather than the person she is now? And why does Tess appear to notice Alex most when he becomes interesting to someone else?
During several scenes, I caught myself thinking: I could help this couple! Just give me a few hours with them!
That impulse—part fantasy, part professional reflex—speaks to something real about marriage. When couples struggle, especially during the demanding years of raising children, it is easy to lose sight of the distinction between relational distress and individual stagnation. The two often intertwine, but they are not the same.
In my work, when married couples are struggling to reconnect, I sometimes share an observation that surprises people. About a decade after divorce, individuals who did not leaving marital situations marked by abuse, addiction, or chronic betrayal will often reflect with a degree of hard-earned clarity: had they understood how difficult divorce would be—logistically, emotionally, and relationally—they would have tried differently. Not necessarily harder in a frantic sense, but deeper. With more humility, more flexibility, and more willingness to examine their own contributions to the impasse.
This is not an argument against divorce. It is, instead, an argument for emotionally mature discernment.
Once the early stage of infatuation passes, every intimate relationship eventually encounters friction. The work of staying—of negotiating difference, tolerating disappointment, and continuing to grow alongside another person—is demanding. But it is also one of the primary ways we develop as individuals. And when a couple is able to find a way to balance work and parenting and support each other as a team, there honestly is nothing better.
Is This Thing On? may not fully explore the inner lives of its characters, but it gestures toward a truth that therapists witness every day: Sometimes the question is not whether a relationship is broken, but whether the people within it have stopped growing. And whether the people within it are willing to dig in deep in order to fix it.
If you and your spouse are struggling with disconnection and chronic overwhelm, try streaming this film and discussing what it touches in you. To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
