Comedian Aziz Ansari is the writer and director of the new film “Good Fortune." He also plays the hard-luck hero, Arj, who apparently came out of college equipped to be a documentary film editor.
In modern-day Los Angeles, he’s living in his car, and survives on a patchwork of part-time jobs — delivery guy, retail associate for a day at Hardware Heaven and even a paid place-holder for the line that forms at the neighborhood pastry shop.
Some hope appears when he’s hired as personal assistant to rich guy Jeff (played by Seth Rogen.) But after a single infraction, Arj is fired.
However, Arj, Jeff and the rest of humanity are not aware that we are being watched by hovering, empathetic angels. (Yep, the 1987 German classic “Wings of Desire” has been transplanted to La La Land.) Some angels help humans facing suicidal despair or they spur creativity.
Unfortunately, Arj only draws the interest of Gabriel (played by Keanu Reeves) a doofusy angel with nubby little wings whose assigned job is to stop people from texting and driving.
A customer review for Gabriel? Let’s just say if he had been assigned to Bedford Falls, George Bailey would have happily jumped back into the icy river.
Gabriel’s idea is to switch lives between rich guy and poor guy. Jeff is thrown into the gig economy. Arj gets the hilltop mansion, the sauna and the wild parties.
But can wealth really bring happiness? Arj basically answers “Hell, yes!”
As a filmmaker, Ansari is most impressive showing the comic and tragic details of life at the top, and the bottom, of the economic ladder. He’s so convincing that you wonder how he can pull the film back from being a total downer about the defeated, frustrated poor and the pampered rich who never learn.
The twist is Keanu Reeves’ movie-stealing performance. Gabriel (a variation on that legendary head-wagging 80’s dude Theodore “Ted” Logan) is demoted for incompetence and becomes human.
He wins the audience’s hearts as he discovers that in many ways, life stinks. But Gabriel also comes to appreciate dancing, human connection and tacos. The movie’s case for cautious optimism — maybe? just barely? — saves it.
Among the other stars, Seth Rogen does his best with a predictable character who’s mostly a jerk, with some chance to be redeemed. Ansari is likable, but give him credit that his hero, as written, has a selfish streak.
And Keke Palmer brings some sparkle to the normally dull “good girl” character. She’s actually the moral center of the film, trying to improve the world without heavenly help.
About this cinematic trip called “Good Fortune”, my Uber review gives it three and a half stars out of five.
