Good Fortune

Aziz Ansari steps into a writer-director role for the first time since his Netflix show Master Of None with Good Fortune, in which he also stars. He plays Arj, a guy struggling to make a living in Los Angeles. He sleeps in his car, showers at the gym, and pieces together low-paid work from a part-time retail gig plus food delivery and task-outsourcing apps. After completing a task for Jeff (Seth Rogen), a very rich tech investor with a huge house and his own sauna in the garden, Arj convinces Jeff to hire him as a personal assistant.

When things go awry, low-ranking angel Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) — who is currently only responsible for stopping people texting while driving, and searching for a lost soul — steps in and swaps their lives, giving Jeff a taste of being on the poverty line. Unsurprisingly, Arj is then reluctant to switch back. It’s a convoluted set-up for a switch we knew was coming, to deliver a message we don’t need this film to tell us: that being poor sucks, and being rich, while not the cure for all life’s problems, does make most things a hell of a lot easier.

For a film billed as a comedy, there are no real laughs to be found.

Reeves’ otherworldly presence does work for a character that is mythical and (somewhat) wise, but also a total fish out of water when having to blend in with human life — Gabriel eating a hamburger for the first time is the best moment of comedy in the film. Rogen is always likeable, even when he’s playing a grossly wealthy, completely out-of-touch douchebag, and Keke Palmer is the secret weapon here — she’s luminescent as union activist Elena, the one sane voice challenging Arj as he gets carried away living Jeff’s luxurious life.

Though the quality of the cast is undeniable, the dialogue they’re given to work with is stilted and detached, never going deep enough for us to believe these characters have built true connections, or had real personal epiphanies. Everything is nicely shot, the Christmas Carol-esque visions Gabriel gives Arj of his life to come are poignantly done, and it does try to explore America’s vast wealth-inequality problems — though in a way that ultimately feels first-base and performative. But Good Fortune’s biggest sin of all? For a film billed as a comedy, there are no real laughs to be found.