Attempt as he may, Aziz Ansari can’t fairly appear to learn the room. One of many extra egregious examples of late was the comedian’s choice to carry out at Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Pageant. Ansari defended his selection to assist culturally launder the régime’s authoritarian fame on a current episode of Jimmy Kimmel Stay!, pledging to present a portion of the price he acquired to Human Rights Watch. The organisation subsequently rejected the donation, a spokesperson telling Selection final week that it couldn’t settle for what primarily quantities to blood cash.
Ethics below capitalism are a guiding theme of Good Fortune, a high-concept however principally unremarkable body-swap comedy exploring the demise of the American Dream. The actor-turned-filmmaker (who additionally wrote the script) stars as Arj, a down-on-his-luck documentary editor attempting to make ends meet in LA. Having to endure the humiliations of app-based gig work and residing out of his automobile, Arj ultimately catches a break when he meets Jeff (Seth Rogen), a enterprise capitalist tech bro residing massive in a Bel Air mansion.
Get extra Little White Lies
Jeff’s world – snacking on burrata, taking conferences over imported omakase and experimenting with distinction remedy from his private sauna – bewitches Arj virtually instantly. He efficiently pitches himself as Jeff’s new assistant, and when he sparks a romantic connection together with his co-worker, Elena (a woefully under-utilised Keke Palmer), it seems like his luck is lastly turning round.
However it doesn’t final lengthy. Jeff fires him for utilizing the corporate card on a lavish date with Elena, and he’s again to sq. one. Exhausted and demoralised, Arj edges in the direction of suicidality as a celestial energy watches on from above: a guardian angel named Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) who decides he should intervene. We study that Gabriel is a low-ranking angel whose major project is to save lots of folks from texting-while-driving accidents by tapping them on the shoulder. He envies Azrael (Stephen McKinley Henderson) who wields extra duty as a shepherd of ‘misplaced souls’ and has a pair of far bigger feathered wings to point out for it.
Gabriel identifies Arj as a misplaced soul and adopts him as a form of private challenge, utilizing his powers to have him commerce locations with Jeff within the hopes that the expertise will give him an appreciation of his personal life. After all the plan backfires, and Arj refuses to modify again. Although the set-up is initially amusing, it shortly wears skinny; a lot of the next runtime is spent ready for Arj to alter his thoughts, with a newly-humbled Jeff and a dejected, demoted Gabriel, banished from his angelic duties and made to reside a human life, toiling in a kitchen as a dishwasher.
“I was a celestial being,” he laments. “Now I’m a chain-smoker.” The movie’s greatest comedic moments are sometimes rooted within the supply of one-liners like these, however the jokes can change into repetitive or have negligible influence. There are one too many unfunny Ansari-isms: cutesy turns of phrase like “rooster nuggies,” “burrata boys” or “dum-dum” seem advert nauseam, traces which may have felt much less misplaced a decade earlier, within the mouth of his quirked-up Parks and Recreation persona.
Good Fortune comes throughout as equally underbaked in its try at class commentary, gesturing at points like America’s more and more untenable earnings inequality, widespread exploitative working circumstances, automation’s function in devaluing human labour, the divisive evils of union-busting and extra – however the movie doesn’t have something extra refined to say about these issues, aside from indicating that the scenario is, certainly… dangerous. Although its coronary heart is in the fitting place politically, the movie nonetheless comes throughout as small-minded, in that it’s solely in a position to think about particular person liberation as a treatment. For Arj (and, it appears, Ansari), a very powerful issues in life are laughing, dancing and consuming tacos. It’s a tremendous sentiment, if a little too pat, particularly when the movie’s wholly unmerited glad ending boils right down to the trickle-down benevolence of the billionaire class.
Sadly, the schmaltzy mumblecore sensibilities that made Ansari’s Grasp of None a profitable outing don’t translate in Good Fortune, an observational comedy of paltry statement; a frothy, massive studio concoction of little substance and even much less fashion.