After a quarter century as a working actor, it’s hardly surprising that Bradley Cooper would be drawn for subject matter to the cathartic nature of performing and its effect on relationships. What’s less expected is that all three of his highly accomplished films as director have used that spark in such different ways. A Star Is Born explored the arc of a couple respectively experiencing the glow of the spotlight and the chill as it dims, while Maestro weighed the creative genius of an impassioned artist against the limited oxygen left for a uniquely complex love story.

In Cooper’s tenderly observed third feature, Is This Thing On?, performance is a rebound reflex, a therapeutic means of working through the end of a marriage and stumbling onto the self-discovery necessary to process what went wrong — inadvertently realizing that the foundations on which it was built remain intact. It’s an unassuming comic drama that sneaks up on you, its emotional honesty fueled by gorgeous performances of unimpeachable naturalness from Will Arnett and Laura Dern.

Inspired by British footballer-turned-comedian John Bishop’s personal story and written by Cooper and Arnett with Mark Chappell, the movie drops the bombshell of marital breakdown with a disarming absence of melodrama. “I think we need to call it, right?” says Dern’s Tess Novak, while cleaning her teeth before bed. “I think so too,” concurs Arnett’s Alex. Refreshingly, it’s a mutual decision that appears not to be pickled in bitterness but grounded in maturity and mutual respect.

Peeling away any superfluous connective tissue along with the preamble, the script picks up on Alex and Tess having an amicable get-together with their friends in Manhattan — long-married couple Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Cooper), soon to be empty nesters, and gay newlyweds Stephen (Sean Hayes) and Geoffrey (Hayes’ real-life husband Scott Icenogle).

Only later when they sit on a Grand Central platform sharing a hash cookie and Alex absent-mindedly gets up to board the Metro-North train with Tess does it become clear that the couple is already living apart.

Slightly stoned and clearly in no rush to go home alone, Alex wanders into the Olive Tree Café in the West Village. To avoid paying the $15 cover charge, he puts his name down on the sign-up sheet for open mic night at the Comedy Cellar downstairs. After an uncertain start, he begins riffing with candor and self-deprecation about his divorce after 26 years with his ex, revealing that he’s living alone in a city apartment. Seemingly to his own surprise as much as anyone’s, his impromptu material gets laughs.

Skipping over the usual “breaking-the-news” scenes regarding Tess and Alex’s separation, the film focuses more on their adjustment and that of the people closest to them. The chief moments of revelation are those pertaining to Alex’s burgeoning stand-up career as he gains confidence and begins to feel a camaraderie with fellow performers — many of them played by New York comedy scene fixtures, adding immeasurably to the film’s fond sense of place.

The most poignant moment takes place in Alex’s car as he’s driving his 10-year-old sons (Blake Kane and Calvin Knegton) — not twins, but “Irish twins,” as he describes them on stage — back home after an overnight stay at his apartment. Disconcerted to find themselves and their mother serving as joke material in the notebook they discover beside their dad’s bed, the boys are confused, one of them particularly upset.

It’s a forgivable movie-ish contrivance to have Tess on a quasi-date (with Peyton Manning in an amusing appearance) wander into the Comedy Cellar by chance and catch Alex’s act, just as he’s sharing the unaccustomed sensations of sex with another woman for the first time in decades. He also confesses that it made him miss his ex-wife more, wondering what that’s about.

Arnett and Dern so fully inhabit their characters that nothing about that awkward encounter feels false. Instead, it uncovers mutual affection and attraction that have been dormant rather than dead, in a funny, sexy, kinda sorta reunion. There’s no swift solution to Tess and Alex’s problems as a couple, but there is a new willingness to talk about their frustrations.

Just as Alex finds a contentment that he’s been missing through stand-up, Tess returns to volleyball, a sport at which she excelled in her younger years, finding gratifying opportunities as a professional coach. While Alex’s stand-up evolution is the hook, the heart of the movie is their marriage. It’s to the filmmakers’ credit that rather than one man’s reawakening, it becomes a re-evaluation for both partners of the value and meaning of loving commitment.

The shifts in the central couple’s relationship are also echoed in different ways by the other couples around them. That includes Alex’s parents — his father Jan (Ciarán Hinds), a warm, sensitive soul with empathetic access to his son’s feelings; and the hilariously plain-spoken Marilyn (Christine Ebersole), who makes no apologies for the close friendship with Tess that she has no intention of severing.

Family scenes with the boys and their two big adorably lollopy dogs at home or at their grandparents’ place are so lived-in and natural — the defining strength of Cooper’s work with his entire cast — that we feel the pangs Alex feels in stepping away from that life.

The other chief marital comparison point is Christine and Balls, notably during an annual group weekend with Stephen and Geoffrey in a sprawling house in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where Alex and Tess sneak around to conceal the fact that they are, if not definitively back together, at least having sex. (A lovely interlude as the various guests wander down to breakfast while Christine gently sings “Amazing Grace” seems a direct nod to The Big Chill.)

In amusing intersecting scenes, Balls tells Alex that seeing him so happy has inspired him to ask Christine for a divorce. Christine, who has always been closer to Tess and a little prickly around Alex, tells him that watching him stagnate and lose his spark has confirmed her belief that marriage just doesn’t work.

This is a superb ensemble piece with a wonderfully loose, almost improv vibe and an emotional trajectory that rarely goes exactly where you might expect. Cooper’s grasp of the material is unerring, imbuing it with a sweetness that’s never cloying, a generosity of spirit that’s never unearned. And the film’s intimacy throughout is amplified in the frequent tight close-ups of cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s expressive visual language.

The movie gives the distinct sense of a quick, unfussy shoot with an easygoing sense of community — on the set, in the stand-up milieu and among Tess and Alex’s friends and family. Everything flows; nothing feels forced.

Cooper gets considerable humorous mileage out of his goofy stoner role, starting with a guffaw-inducing pratfall entrance involving an exploding carton of oat milk. But there’s no scene-stealing, just harmoniously synced ensemble work that makes us invested in all the connections orbiting around Alex and Tess, roles in which Arnett and Dern could not be better. Arnett’s comic timing is a given, but the actor finds previously unseen depths in the ache roiling underneath.

A scene in the Oyster Bay attic bedroom when Alex suggests a therapy exercise in which they confess the things they dislike about each other is both needling and perceptive in its insights into the give and take, the corrosive compromises, the pettiness that flares into resentment that can come to define a long-term relationship. But the script never gives up on Alex and Tess, and neither do we.

Without spoiling the outcome too much, it’s fair to say that although there are thematic overlaps here with Noah Baumbach’s exquisite Marriage Story, the tone and ultimate outlook are entirely different. It’s unlikely that any movie will ever use “Under Pressure,” the hit by Queen and David Bowie, with anything close to the searing emotional power of the Aftersun climax. But a performance of the song by the school band in which Tess and Alex’s boys play brings its own kind of joyous release to cap this soulful, satisfying movie.

A conversation early in Harris Dickinson’s excellent directorial debut “Urchin” (winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes this year) between protagonist Mike (Frank Dillane) and a guy he meets on the street named Simon (Okezie Morro) speaks of “a gap of empathy” in modern society. Dickinson’s nuanced character study closes that gap, but it does so in a way that’s never sentimental or manipulative. Inspired by tales of people on the fringe by Mike Leigh, Sean Baker, and the Safdie Brothers, “Urchin” stays committed to presenting Mike’s story without frills, recognizing that it’s just a tragically common one of a man spiraling down the drain of society.

Mike has been living on the streets for years, fighting a losing battle against his drug addiction. Shortly after Simon’s comment, Mike sucker punches him, steals his watch, and quickly pawns it for 40 bucks. He’s picked up shortly thereafter, forced into a nine-month stint behind bars. When he emerges, he’s clean and ready to start again, placed in a hostel for people reentering society, and even gets a job as a chef (cutly smiling as he practices saying “yes, chef” in just the right way). He’s a good employee, and he spends his days listening to motivational recordings that seem to be working.

The problem with Mike is that he retreats or explodes when faced with conflict. A customer complains about his steak at the restaurant, and he argues instead of capitulating. He clashes with a co-worker who admittedly seems to go on way too many breaks. And then a meeting is coordinated with him and Simon—one of those events designed to heal both of them—and the swirl of guilt on Dillane’s face is palpable. One can see that this is going to rattle him in a way that will send him spiraling yet again.

Dillane is jittery, unpredictable, and raw, but never in a forced Hollywood fashion. He plays discomfort incredibly well, sketching a portrait of the kind of guy who uses drugs and makes bad decisions in part because of how poorly he handles setbacks. It’s an excellent performance, one that fills almost every frame of the movie without being showy. It’s a humane portrayal of a person that feels consistently true instead of sentimental. Early in the film, we track water from a shower down a drain and into nature, illustrating how easy that is to do for some people. Broken systems let it happen, and temptation is more motivational than pre-recorded advice.

It helps that Dickinson proves himself an excellent director right from the beginning. Working with Bertrand Bonello’s regular cinematographer Josée Deshaies (who shot “The Beast” last year), he gives “Urchin” in uncluttered visual language that allows our eye to take in the entire moment without the sweaty close-ups that usually define tales of the homeless and addicted. We sit with Mike in these spaces, often presented in static camera shots or slow zooms like in a great scene in which Mike sings karaoke (“Whole Again” by Atomic Kitten, an inspired choice) on a couch with two co-workers, under a tiny mirror ball. We get the mundanity of the moment, but also get how much this brief burst of goofy happiness means to someone who has had too little of it in his life. Dickinson gets a little too aggressive with a score that uses chunky guitar to build tension in the final act when Dillane is good enough to sell Mike’s decline without it. Still, it’s a minor complaint for a screenwriter/director who makes so many smart choices with his first film.

Yes, there’s the influence of the kitchen sink dramas of Leigh & Loach, and the empathy of Baker, but the film that echoes the most through “Urchin” to this viewer is actually the one that announced Dickinson just eight years ago. 2017’s “Beach Rats” featured Dickinson’s debut performance and was an acclaimed leap forward for its filmmaker, Eliza Hittman. Dickinson clearly learned a lot on that set as both an actor and filmmaker because he captures with his own work why that movie was so successful: an understanding of the complexity of the human condition and a refusal to turn into melodrama. That drama was nominated for Best Male Lead and Best Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards that year. This one is deserving of the same—and maybe more.

Content warning: This story includes discussions of eating disorders.

When Netflix dropped its 2023 docuseries “Beckham,” Victoria Beckham stole the show with her British humor and viral Rolls–Royce moment. But the spotlight was still largely her husband’s to relish.

The tables have turned in “Victoria Beckham,” released Thursday on Netflix. The three-part docuseries — helmed by Nadia Hallgren, who directed “Becoming,” the streamer’s doc about Michelle Obama — follows the U.K.’s favorite honorary royal on her journey from awkward theater kid to pop icon to fashion mogul. The documentary is bookended by and structured around the Victoria Beckham Paris Fashion Week show in 2024.

“It’s not about him,” Victoria says, referencing her legendary footballer husband in the documentary’s opening minutes. “It’s about me.”

Produced by David Beckham’s production company, Studio 99, “Victoria Beckham” inevitably paints its eponymous subject in a flattering light, doubling down on her characterization as an “underdog” from a working-class family. But after hearing, over the course of the docuseries, British broadcasters lambaste Victoria about everything from her weight to her naivety, it feels like she’s earned it.

Concerned about how a documentary about her might be received, Victoria said she was initially hesitant to agree to the project.

“At first, I said ‘no,’ but then I took a bit of time and I really thought long and hard about it,” the designer said. “I have been so defined by when I was in the Spice Girls, which was only a four-year period in my life, whereas fashion I’ve been in for coming up to two decades.”

“Up until recently, I was aware I was still fighting the preconceptions because of my previous career and always being mindful of the noise and just focusing on building the [fashion and beauty] brand,” she said. It was only recently that she felt that she could share her story without it reflecting negatively on her business ventures.

While the docuseries dodges controversial topics like David’s alleged affair, a potential Spice Girls reunion and the Beckhams’ rumored rift with their son Brooklyn Peltz Beckham — who, unlike his three siblings, never appears in the film — and his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham, it does still reveal much about Victoria and her fraught relationship with her Posh Spice persona.

Here are seven takeaways from the Netflix docuseries.

With the Spice Girls, Victoria blossomed

As a young girl growing up in Hertfordshire, England, Victoria didn’t have many friends and her confidence suffered as a result.

“I was definitely a loner at school,” Victoria said. “I was bullied. I was awkward. I wasn’t particularly sociable. I just didn’t fit in at all.”

But becoming Posh Spice completely altered how she perceived herself and was a critical step toward self-acceptance.

“It was the first time that I ever felt like I belonged. All of a sudden, I was popular,” Victoria said. “My life would be very different if I hadn’t met those four girls.”

From Posh Spice to WAG

Victoria is often credited for creating the phenomenon of WAGs (wives and girlfriends of high-profile athletes).

Shortly after she married David in 1999, the Spice Girls disbanded, leaving Victoria without a key aspect of her identity: “We were like a tornado, and then all of a sudden, it stopped.”

Lost without her pop-star persona, Victoria leaned into the role of supportive wife. Her public outings consisted of attending Manchester United games and shopping for designer clothes — always in view of paparazzi.

“I look at those pictures and I smile. But when I look back and think, why?” Victoria said in the documentary. “I suppose there was an element of attention-seeking, if I’m being completely honest. It was at a time when I didn’t feel creatively fulfilled, so it’s how I stayed in the conversation.”

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was trying to find myself,” she said. “I felt incomplete, sad, frozen in time maybe.”

“I’ve been everything from Porky Posh to Skinny Posh,” Victoria Beckham said in her Netflix docuseries, released Thursday.

(Netflix)

Victoria battled an eating disorder

Mere months after giving birth to Brooklyn in 1999, Victoria was pressured into weighing herself live on Chris Evans’ show “TFI Friday” so viewers could see whether she’d lost her “baby weight.” She laughed it off, but the experience traumatized her.

“I didn’t know what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Was I fat? Was I thin? I don’t know. You lose all sense of reality,” she said.

Unable to influence what the tabloids said about her body, Victoria said she controlled her weight instead: “I was controlling it in an incredibly unhealthy way.”

Victoria said that she never confided in her parents about her eating disorder, nor did she ever speak about it publicly. She first opened up about her restrictive diet and binge eating in her 2001 autobiography, “Learning to Fly.”

“In the gym, instead of checking my posture or position, I was checking the size of my bottom, or to see if my double chin was getting any smaller,” she writes in the book — although she denies having had anorexia.

At first, designers laughed Victoria off

Following the Beckhams’ move across the pond to California, Victoria decided to seriously pursue her dream of working in the fashion industry. When news broke of her career pivot, designers were skeptical.

And when her debut collection got remarkably good press, she was accused of passing off her mentor Roland Mouret’s designs as her own.

“Of course, there’s gotta be a man behind it. It couldn’t be like a silly little pop star,” Victoria said in the documentary.

Victoria, who had been infatuated with fashion since childhood and had spent most of the Spice Girls’ clothing budget on Gucci dresses, refused to give up so easily. She put her head down and kept working until she earned her peers’ respect.

Anna Wintour is a Victoria Beckham fan

In 2009, Madonna wore a black zippered dress from Victoria Beckham’s debut collection in a W Magazine photoshoot. Two years later, Victoria Beckham won designer brand of the year at the British Fashion Awards.

Even Anna Wintour admitted she had misjudged the pop star-turned-luxury designer.

“I think we can all be a bit snobby in the fashion business and think, maybe this is, you know, a side gig,” Wintour said in the doc. “But Victoria was one that totally proved us wrong.”

Victoria’s business almost went under

Among the documentary’s most shocking moments is Victoria’s business partner David Belhassen revealing that the designer was spending $70,000 a year on office plants. (Plus another $15,000 annually for someone to water them.)

That fact goes a long way in explaining why Victoria’s brand, while generally well-regarded, was deep in debt even after years of investment from the designer’s husband.

“We were tens of millions in the red,” Victoria said.

Once David reluctantly closed the bank, Victoria was “desperate,” she said. So she pleaded her case with Belhassen.

Flummoxed by the level of financial waste and the dire situation Victoria’s brand faced, Belhassen initially resolved to tell Victoria “no.” Then, by chance, his wife wore a Victoria Beckham dress to date night; stunned by the quality of the garment, he changed his mind.

“[Victoria] was very emotional, and she told me, ‘I won’t let you down,’” Belhassen said.

Women’s Wear Daily reported in August that the brand’s revenue hit $150 million last year and that it is now “on track for long-term profitability.”

Posh Spice is in the past

Victoria said in the documentary that she will always be grateful for the opportunities the Spice Girls gave her.

“I have never forgotten where I come from. I’ve never, ever forgotten that Posh Spice is the reason that I’m sitting here now,” she said.

But she’s also known since the Return of the Spice Girls Tour, the legendary girl group’s reunion tour that ran from 2007 to 2008, that her days as Posh Spice are long gone.

“It was during that tour that I realized I didn’t belong on stage. It had been fun, but it wasn’t what I loved anymore,” she said. Fashion has been her focus since, and she’s still hungry for success with her Victoria Beckham brand.

As Victoria tells David in the final moments of the docuseries, “I’m proud and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m ambitious, and I’ve still got a lot that I wanna do.”

“I’m not stopping yet,” she said.

Victoria and David Beckham walk the grounds of their Cotswolds, England, estate, which is featured heavily in “Victoria Beckham.”

(Netflix)

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