Good Fortune

The Angel in the Algorithm

There is a specific, jagged anxiety that defines the modern gig economy—the sensation of being one bad rating or one towed car away from total collapse. In *Good Fortune* (2025), Aziz Ansari captures this precariousness and attempts to balm it with the oldest salve in Hollywood’s medicine cabinet: high-concept fantasy. Marking his official directorial debut after the collapse of the ill-fated *Being Mortal*, Ansari’s film operates in the shadow of Frank Capra, but with a cynical, distinctly millennial twist. It asks a question that *It’s a Wonderful Life* never dared to pose: What if the guardian angel is wrong, and money actually *does* buy happiness?

The film’s visual language, captured by cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, effectively bifurcates Los Angeles into two distinct planets. Arj (Ansari) lives in a world of claustrophobic interiors—his cramped car, the fluorescent purgatory of the "Hardware Heaven" store—shot in gritty, suffocating close-ups. In contrast, the life of Jeff (Seth Rogen), the venture capitalist Arj eventually swaps fates with, is filmed in wide, expansive frames that breathe with the terrifying freedom of excess. Ansari uses this contrast not just to show wealth, but to show *space*—the ultimate luxury in a crowded city. The film is less interested in the aesthetics of gold-plated toilets than in the quiet, terrifying relief of having a bedroom door to close.

At the narrative center is a subversion of the "moral lesson" trope. When the well-meaning but administratively incompetent angel Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) swaps the men’s lives, he expects Arj to learn that spiritual fulfillment outweighs material comfort. Instead, the narrative collapses under the weight of a far more brutal truth: Arj loves being rich. He sleeps better. His skin clears up. The crushing weight of survival is lifted. It is a bold narrative choice that strips away the romanticism of poverty often found in Hollywood fables. By refusing to let Arj learn the "correct" lesson, Ansari exposes the hollowness of the platitude that "money isn't everything" when spoken to those who have nothing.

However, the film’s true emotional anchor is not the sociological experiment, but Keanu Reeves’s Gabriel. Casting Reeves as a dim-witted, chain-smoking celestial bureaucrat is a stroke of brilliance. Reeves strips away his action-star stoicism to reveal a raw, almost child-like vulnerability. There is a profound sadness in his performance; Gabriel is an entity of infinite power rendered impotent by the rigid bureaucracy of Heaven (represented by a sharp Sandra Oh) and the sheer complexity of human suffering. The scenes where a wingless Gabriel discovers the tactile joys of humanity—specifically the consumption of tacos and the rhythmic release of dancing—provide the film’s most tender moments. He becomes the audience surrogate, looking at the absurdity of human economic structures with a baffled, alien grace.

If *Good Fortune* stumbles, it is perhaps in its resolution, which retreats slightly into the safety of sentimental convention after spending ninety minutes deconstructing it. The friction between Rogen’s chaotic energy and Ansari’s neuroticism occasionally feels like a relic of their earlier comedies, slightly out of step with the film’s more melancholy undercurrents. Yet, as a piece of cultural commentary, the film succeeds by admitting what few feel-good movies will: that the system is rigged, the angels are confused, and sometimes, the only miracle available is surviving the day. It is a messy, imperfect debut, but one that beats with a frantic, undeniably human heart.