Good Fortune is a comedy that marks the directorial debut of Aziz Ansari, who also costars and writes the film. To his credit, Ansari crafts a film that has a fair amount of laughs, but it also has a lot to say about the correlation between the current economic climate and empathy for those who aren’t climbing the ladder to success.
Ansari stars as Arj, who works menial jobs such as a tasker and at a hardware store just to make ends meet. He ends up living in his car at the beginning of the movie.
While continuing his daily grind, Arj meets two individuals who play important roles in his life: Keke Palmer plays Elena, who also works at the hardware store, and they soon develop a relationship. She’s fighting to unionize the workers for better pay so they don’t have to struggle to get by.
The other individual is Jeff (Seth Rogen), a technology investor who hires Arj to do some odd jobs around his home, but then things take a turn for the worse when Arj uses a company credit card that Jeff gives him to pay for dinner with Elena and fires him.
All of these misfortunes capture the attention of Gabriel (Keanu Reeves), a budget guardian angel whose job is mainly relegated to making sure people don’t text and drive. Gabriel becomes fascinated with Arj’s life and tries to show him that wealth will not solve all his problems by switching both Arj’s and Jeff’s lives. Gabriel’s plan severely backfires when it seems that the wealth has solved most of Arj’s problems.
In some of its framework, Good Fortune reminded me a lot of It’s a Wonderful Life with its attempts to show individuals a new perspective on life with a unique twist. Unlike Clarence, Gabriel is inept at his job and loses his wings as punishment for stepping outside his realm of expertise, and he’s forced to live as a human.
Ansari’s screenplay is chock-full of wit and humor, courtesy of its terrific cast. Rogen does have some patented moments of his shtick, but Ansari is perhaps the MVP of this movie. His Arj is a character that has lost all hope in ever thinking his life will get better, so he can be comfortable, but he’s not a completely neurotic, brooding mess. His character comes up with one-liners that do land, and he also makes Arj a grounded character who reacts naturally to the supernatural goings-on.
Reeves, on the other hand, brings a charming, deadpan style to the movie. When Gabriel becomes human, his whole existence is a fish-out-of-water ordeal, and he reacts like an enthusiastic child to the world around him. He loves hamburgers, tacos, and milkshakes. Plus, he quickly becomes skilled at the cumbia dances.
The dialogue exchanges between Reeves and Ansari supply a lot of the humor, but it’s not laugh-out-loud funny. Rather, it’s restrained and measured rather than going for belly laughs, which is a bit of a letdown. However, the laughs that do work land and land hard.
The movie cleverly offers insights into the haves vs the have-nots. But instead of being preachy, it uses engaging dialogue that elicits genuine reactions from its cast. It holds a mirror up to the screen and deflects some obvious truths through wit.
Good Fortune has a structure that is a little more complicated than its simplistic premise would have us believe, and sometimes it throws in ingredients that don’t feel necessary. It’s not the divine comedy some may be expecting, but it has a heart and soul to go with its other obligatory elements.
