Aziz Ansari’s feature directorial debut comes at an awkward time. Good Fortune, which Ansari also wrote, produced, and stars in, is a well-intentioned film about the meaning of life, a naked attempt at bringing Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life to late-stage capitalism. 

 

Ansari stars as Arj, a forty-ish guy struggling to make ends meet in the gig economy, whose life is swapped with Jeff (Seth Rogen), a wealthy tech bro. The angel in this scenario is Gabriel, played by a slightly surreal Keanu Reeves. There are some nice jokes and milquetoast observations about wealth inequality, and a honking big elephant in the room in the shape of Ansari’s recent appearance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Ideally, that shouldn’t matter to the film itself, but Ansari made a film explicitly about ethics, just as his own ethics are under fire. It’s like going to party but someone puked in the middle of the floor. Hard not to notice the vomit.

 

For the most part, Good Fortune is mostly harmless. As a director, Ansari has an eye for setting and a light touch with actors. He subverts Seth Rogen’s stoner teddy bear energy into a rich guy whose cruelty is the product of mostly benign cluelessness, while amping up Keanu Reeves’s spacey screen persona, turning Gabriel into a naïve sweetheart who simply doesn’t understand humanity enough to truly help people. There are some good jokes in Good Fortune, mostly stemming from Gabriel’s antics. Reeves has always been a good comedic actor, and here he has plenty of comedic notes to play. Ansari also understands the physical appeal of Reeves—yes, there are jokes about how everyone thinks Gabriel is hot, but Reeves hasn’t looked so tall on screen in ages.

 

Gabriel is meant to protect people from texting and driving, but apparently, angels aren’t immune from ambition, and he longs to do more “important” work like saving lost souls. Believing Arj, who is sleeping in his car and unable to find steady work, is a lost soul, Gabriel intervenes. Attempting to help Arj see the value in his life, Gabriel switches Arj and Jeff, letting Arj live Jeff’s life of lazy luxury while Jeff suddenly has to scrape by on the meager earnings offered by myriad app jobs.

The “joke” is, of course, that money does solve Arj’s problems. The problem for Good Fortune, in turn, is that Ansari has nothing to say beyond this very general observation. It seems like the film will take a more acute tack and show the emptiness of Jeff’s life, as a conspicuous collage of photos in his home shows him on a series of solo vacations, and his 40th birthday party looms, a perfect setting for revelations about the emptiness of Jeff’s life. But no, Arj goes on a rad vacation, and the party is fun. It’s the easiest, down-the-middle version of this story, to say something bland about how money is no guarantee of companionship, but Good Fortune can’t even muster that sentiment.

 

Amidst all this Gabriel is on his own journey, fired from angel-dom because he messed up Arj and Jeff’s lives so badly. Jeff is preternaturally kind and understanding toward Gabriel, befriending the fallen angel and helping him acclimatize to human living. When Gabriel begins to display the same hopelessness as Arj, Jeff tries to help Gabriel out of his funk. Gabriel’s journey to understanding humanity is far more interesting than Arj and Jeff’s life-swap, in part because Reeves himself is genuinely funny in the role, and in part because Gabriel’s lessons in the small pleasures of life are genuinely joyful, something completely missing from Arj’s story. 

Good Fortune ends with a vacuous screed about paying fair wages—and defending human jobs from AI—which is the only stand the film makes. I am no fan of It’s A Wonderful Life, a film that promotes mediocrity and sameness, but at least George Bailey’s lesson is that he is part of a rich community tapestry, and his existence is directly beneficial to others. Good Fortune goes in a more nebulous direction, offering vague platitudes about trying and change is hard. For a film that invites complicated questions about ethics, empathy, and equity, Good Fortune doesn’t want to touch any of that with a ten-foot pole. The film is as sweet-natured as Gabriel, but the message deserves more teeth.

 

Good Fortune is now playing exclusively in theaters.

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