The first trailer for Brad's Status stars Ben Stiller as a middle-aged man going through a bit of a crisis. Written and directed by Mike White - who many moviegoers no doubt remember as the writer of School of Rock - the new film sees Stiller finding himself at a bit of a crossroads in his personal life and career while accompanying his son on a tour of several prestigious Boston colleges.

As the 47-year-old Brad Sloan, Stiller starts to see himself in his musical prodigy son Troy (Austin Abrams), and begins to worry that his mistakes will be generationally repeated. Featuring a supporting cast of more successful best friends - including White as film icon Nick Pascale, Luke Wilson (Old School) as Wall Street executive Jason Hatfield, Jemaine Clement (What We Do in the Shadows) as retired tech mogul Billy Wearslter, and Michael Sheen (Passengers) as popular writer Craig Fisher - Brad's Status is sure to please dramedy fans the world over.

In the footage featured above, potential viewers of Brad's Status can catch their first sneak peek behind the curtain at everything the new movie will have to offer. Taking a pointed interest in the dwindling personal and professional prospects that remain open to a cinematically stagnating Stiller in mid-life crisis mode, moviegoers will want to be sure to read the full plot synopsis as follows:

Brad has a satisfying career and a comfortable life in suburban Sacramento where he lives with his sweet-natured wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), and their musical prodigy son, Troy (Austin Abrams), but it’s not quite what he imagined during his college glory days. Showing Troy around Boston, where Brad went to university, he can’t help comparing his life with those of his four best college friends: a Hollywood bigshot (Mike White), a hedge-fund founder (Luke Wilson), a tech entrepreneur (Jemaine Clement), and a political pundit and bestselling author (Michael Sheen). As he imagines their wealthy, glamorous lives, he wonders if cozy middle-class domesticity is the best he will ever achieve. But when circumstances force him to reconnect with his former friends, Brad begins to question whether he has really failed or if, in some essential ways, their lives are more flawed than they appear.

White has always been one to pry at the underlying anxieties arising from self-doubt that so often seem to plague the American middle class in the movies, and Brad's Status sees him joining forces with a like-minded comic talent in Stiller. Both of the Hollywood veterans have longstanding resumes to their name already, which only serves to heighten the inherent potential held in store by their latest feature length production.

Admittedly, a lot of the dramatic material soon to be covered in Brad's Status has been exhaustively explored by several like-minded studio films in the past. Nevertheless, Stiller is a consistently believable actor when he takes on such thematic material, and as such White's forthcoming feature should play right into its star's wheelhouse.

Source: Amazon Studios