Good Fortune Review
Good Fortune provides a relatable experience for anyone who has tried just getting by with life. For the average Earth experience, that will likely be the majority of the people who are reading this review. Aziz Ansari arrives with his directorial feature debut, which attempts to highlight the struggles with gig work and the pleasures of living a life that you’re happy with.
We follow Arj, an ordinary guy who struggles to get by as he lives pay cheque to pay cheque by completing gigs, sleeps in his car and showers at the gym. His life soon begins to take a turn when he comes across Jeff (Seth Rogen), an extremely rich tech investor who takes him on as a personal assistant but quickly fires him. Gabriel (Keanu Reeves), a low-tier angel who’s tasked with people who drive and text, decides to intervene as he looks for a higher calling. Gabriel, an innocent angel who always looks at the bright side in life, starts to realise that life isn’t all that he’s been made to believe it is. He switches the lives of Arj and Jeff in hopes of teaching Arj a lesson that being rich doesn’t solve all your problems, but to no one’s surprise, being rich can instantly solve some problems for the less fortunate.
Good Fortune continuously plays around with intriguing concepts as we witness Jeff live Arj’s life, Arj live Jeff’s life, and Gabriel be stripped of his angelic duties and demoted to a human. The movie is most engaging when following Gabriel getting around as a human, as we watch him eat hamburgers and “chicken nuggies” for the first time, or most importantly, when he realises that life is a struggle when he doesn’t make enough from his first pay cheque washing dishes all day.
There’s also Keke Palmer, who plays Elena, a woman whom Arj meets at his job and throughout is the voice of reason as she makes attempts to unionise the store throughout the film and is the singular proof that being wealthy isn’t always the end goal in life. Both Reeves and Palmer are the saving grace of Good Fortune, with Keanu bringing in great line delivery and comedic timing in a movie that mostly falls flat with its jokes, and Keke delivering the only other decent performance and bringing the humanity to a movie that overall lacks it and feels stiff.
Where Good Fortune ultimately fails is that it doesn’t ever feel like I’m watching a real movie. With the inclusion of Seth Rogen, it felt like watching a fake movie from The Studio with the way Aziz Ansari was delivering his lines. It either felt robotic or like I was watching a table read take place, and with Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogen providing the bulk of the comedy, there unfortunately wasn’t any space for a third comedian like Ansari to shine at any point in the movie.
The screenplay overall doesn’t bring the story to a satisfying ending, as aside from Gabriel and Elena, it’s hard to care for any of the other characters, as they’re not provided with enough depth, or their situations just feel all too similar to one another. Good Fortune struggles to be a comedy and has a hard time selling itself with its messages of making a living, unionisation and the harsh conditions of gig working. The ending leaves on a high note, but with the rest of the film in consideration, it doesn’t leave a lasting effect as intended.
★★
In cinemas now / Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh / Dir: Aziz Ansari / Lionsgate / 15
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