Rashi­da Jones and Bill Mur­ray drink Mar­ti­nis in the On the Rocks trailer

Good news Sofia Cop­po­la fans: after we received our first look at her sev­enth fea­ture film last week via Enter­tain­ment Week­ly, the trail­er for On the Rocks has now arrived. The film is the first co-pro­duc­tion between indie dar­lings A24 and tech giant Apple, who have agreed to a slate of films which A24 will pro­duce and dis­trib­ute via cin­e­mas, and will be avail­able to stream via Apple TV+, which launched this year. So far the chan­nel is main­ly known for its tele­vi­sion out­put; On the Rocks is their biggest title to date.

In the trail­er, Lau­ra (Rashi­da Jones) catch­es up with her play­boy father Felix (Bill Mur­ray) over drinks. Fear­ing her hus­band Dean’s (Mar­lon Wayans) work trips and long hours at the office might be signs their rela­tion­ship is ​“on the rocks” (ged­dit) Lau­ra turns to her las­civ­i­ous old man for advice, and he sug­gests a good old-fash­ioned stake-out.

The film is a return to orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al for Cop­po­la, whose pre­vi­ous two films, The Beguiled and The Bling Ring, were based on a nov­el and a mag­a­zine arti­cle respec­tive­ly. It also sees the film­mak­er head to a new des­ti­na­tion, in the hus­tle and bus­tle of New York City.

Cop­po­la pre­vi­ous­ly explored father/​daughter rela­tion­ships in Some­where, her 2010 dra­ma about a young actor suf­fer­ing from iner­tia who sud­den­ly has to take care of his teenage daugh­ter, and tra­di­tion­al­ly her films have focussed on younger pro­tag­o­nists, so we’re intrigued to see how she approach­es a dif­fer­ent sort of char­ac­ter and dynamic.

By Coppola’s own admis­sion, On the Rocks was inspired by the per­son­al cross­roads she found her­self at after hav­ing chil­dren, as well as a con­ver­sa­tion with a friend who sus­pect­ed her part­ner was hav­ing an affair. Explor­ing the anx­i­eties that come from an age­ing mar­riage and the clash of val­ues between gen­er­a­tions, she’s described the film as her take on the ​“odd cou­ple, bud­dy movie” with some pseu­do-screw­ball vibes.

It sounds like just the ton­ic for our COVID blues – and there’s not too long to wait either. Com­ing to Apple TV+ (and the­atres, COVID per­mit­ting) in Octo­ber, you can kick back and watch Jones and Mur­ray sip­ping Mar­ti­nis and explor­ing the high soci­ety side of New York.