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.

In the interest of full disclosure, I like my shipboard murder mysteries with an all-star cast and at least a soupçon of camp. That makes it hard to top the high-water mark of the 1978 Death on the Nile, with the delicious feast of Bette Davis and Maggie Smith swapping acid-tongued barbs and Angela Lansbury in full dotty-eccentric glory; or 1973’s The Last of Sheila, written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, no less, and featuring the incomparable Dyan Cannon as a stand-in for brash ‘70s Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers. By contrast, Netflix’s The Woman in Cabin 10 takes itself very seriously.

That might not necessarily be a bad thing for readers who loved Ruth Ware’s 2016 mystery novel. But Australian theater and film director Simon Stone’s blandly glossy, capably acted adaptation, co-written with Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, is mostly a pedestrian affair that waits until the denouement to crank up the suspense and show some teeth.

Keira Knightley plays Laura “Lo” Blackwood, a respected London investigative journalist traumatized by the killing of a woman who agreed to speak with her for an exposé of NGO embezzlement. While her editor, Rowan (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, wasted in a nothing role), doubts there’s much of a story in it, she agrees to send Lo on the maiden voyage of the Aurora Borealis, a “fuck-off big yacht” owned by Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce).

The husband of Anne Lyngstad (Lisa Loven Kongsli), a shipping heiress with stage four leukemia, Richard is taking the company’s well-heeled board members on a three-day cruise that will wind up in Norway with a fund-raising gala for the cancer foundation being established in Anne’s name. He wants Lo to come along and cover it to help raise awareness; she hopes the cushy assignment might restore her shaky faith in humanity.

But tension intrudes as soon as she boards the mega-yacht and starts sipping champagne amid the standard — though generally thin — character introductions. Lo and behold (sorry), her photo-reporter colleague Ben Morgan (David Ajala), with whom she had a romantic entanglement that unraveled badly, will be staying in the cabin directly opposite hers. Awkward.

Also on board is the doctor and longtime family associate treating Anne, Robert Mehta (Art Malik); cocky party boy Adam Sutherland (Daniel Ings); high-end art gallerist Dame Heidi Heatherley (Hannah Waddingham) and her pompous toff husband Thomas (David Morrissey); tech titan Lars Jensen (Christopher Rygh) and Grace (Kaya Scodelario), the influencer posing as his girlfriend for optics; plus assorted others. Most are either composites of or departures from the characters in Ware’s novel.

In lieu of “the movie star, the professor and Mary Ann” (if only), there’s recovering addict and guitar-strumming former music star Danny Tyler, played by Paul Kaye as the gone-to-seed love child of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean and Gary Oldman in Slow Horses. Coarse and unfiltered, he’s allegedly a dear old chum of suave Richard’s, though the connection doesn’t compute.

There’s the threat of some bitchy, class-divide fun early on as Heidi looks down her nose at Lo, asking her husband, “Why is she in jeans? I feel like there was a dress code.” Lo then makes herself a target of snarky digs by overcompensating for her differences — she’s a Nicholas Kristof type, more comfortable embedding with oppressed Kurdish women — by throwing on a silver sequined number for a casual light supper. So gauche.

But the script has little interest in exploring any potential for incidental humor. Instead, intrigue is planted when Lo is summoned to meet Anne in her cabin the first night. Professing her admiration for Lo’s work “giving a voice to the voiceless,” the heiress reveals that she was the one to request the journo’s presence.

Admitting that her mind isn’t what it was since treatment, Anne asks Lo to look over her speech for the gala, outlining her decision to leave her entire fortune to charity and put the foundation in the hands of “smarter, kinder people.” “Charity without the ego,” coos Lo admiringly.

If you can’t guess the kind of dirty deeds that portends, you need to brush up on your Hercule Poirot. A key piece of casting alone is a tipoff, though the mystery is teased out as to exactly what happened and whether there was a crime at all. The script foregoes the usual pleasures of making almost everyone a suspect — even if more than one person might be in on it.

After an unintended encounter with a furtive woman (Gitte Witt) in cabin 10, the one next to Lo’s, the reporter hears a violent scuffle through the walls, followed by a splash. She rushes onto her balcony in time to glimpse what appears to be a body in the water and a bloody handprint on the wall. But the ship’s mayday alert is called off the next day when a head count reveals that nobody is missing and Lo is informed that cabin 10 was never occupied.

Despite increasingly menacing warnings to back off and stop prying into the lives of rich power players thorny about their privacy, Lo remains determined to get to the truth. This prompts hostility from fellow passengers dismissing her as a nut who imagined everything — even after she has a brush with death in the swimming pool.

Knightley plays all this with intensity, integrity and lots of lip-biting anxiety, making the movie absorbing enough as Lo gets puts through the gaslighting wringer in the glamorously claustrophobic setting. But only in the fraught final stretch, as they get closer to docking and then go ashore for the gala at a scenic coastal location, do other characters have anything vital to do.

Most notably, that includes Witt’s mystery woman and Richard’s head of security Sigrid (Danish actress Amanda Collin, who I spent a scene or two convinced was Sandra Hüller). Ajala and Malik’s characters also come into play in more strategic ways, though most of the assembled party is too colorless to make them all that compelling.

Like much original streaming fodder, The Woman in Cabin 10 will be perfectly adequate entertainment for multitasking viewers, though it’s a bit plodding, even at 90 minutes. Stone (who directed The Dig for Netflix) does a competent job connecting the dots, but where’s the sense of style of these rich folks? Or the décor flourishes of a squillion-dollar yacht that’s tasteful to a fault? We’ve seen better f**k-off boats and chic wardrobes on Succession.