“Good Fortune” is a must for all fans of the last major project, Aziz Ansari has produced and played in its poignant drama from Netflix “Master of None”. His first film has an easy -to -live atmosphere; It’s sad but never too sad, funny but always anchored. The premise of “Good Fortune” certainly seems ridiculous on paper – it is an angel who launches a fatal in a situation “Freaky Friday” with disastrous results – but humor is largely based on the real frustrations of the world of economy and the growing costs of life. It is a film on the cruel of the world towards people who find it difficult to get out of it, and the pure quantity of work and patience required for the people of the working class to find a semblance of peace.
When it comes to knowing if you appreciate this film, more relevant than its reflections on “Master of None” is what you think of the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. This is the main film that “Good Fortune” is inspired, except that “Good Fortune” offers a more cynical tour on the premise. If you are someone who loved “wonderful life” but it found it a little too sappy and simple at the end, you will like most of “good fortune”. It is a film that has taken the familiar format, for a long time reproduced (of a somewhat sufficient and omniscient angel saying to a guy who has long suffered that his life is tall and that he should simply change his attitude) and turn it over to his head. “Good fortune” is not cynical enough to say that George should have jumped from this bridge, but it spends more time examining how poverty can suck someone’s life.
“Remember, no man is a failure that has friends”, is a famous line of “Wonderful Life”, but “Good Fortune” simply replies: having friends does not mean if you cannot afford to live.
Keanu Reeves is adorable like Gabriel, the most stupid angel in paradise
The equivalent of George in “Good Fortune” is Arj (Aziz Ansari), a man who lives in his car and tries to survive all the short -term work on which he can get his hands. Throughout this first act, he goes through a million unworthiness strongly drawn in his quest for basic financial stability, something that the version of Clarence’s film – Gabriel, an angel played by Keanu Reeves – never had to face himself. Thus, when Gabriel tries to give Arj the “wonderful” treatment of life “, good fortune” hides in something much darker and funnier than the first act that implies.
It could have been Also Dark to work, if not for the innocent performances of Keanu Reeves, which means that all pop. This poor sweet angel really wants to help, but his clumsiness and his naivety feed a large part of the chaos of this film. Reeves here is almost unrecognizable of his recent “John Wick” performances, returning rather to the vibrations of his 1989 behavior in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”.
A little less funny is Seth Rogen as the film’s response to Mr. Potter. While “Wonderful Life” paints his capitalist villain as a Heartless Totorless Thief Baron, the character of Rogen CapitalSt Jeff is simply unconscious and self -centered. It is a type of character that could actually be more irritating, because at least Mr. Potter has never set up a friendly and understanding facade.
Good fortune is not as funny as it could be
It may be because I saw this film during a press screening at 9:15 am, but neither me nor the general public with me, we laughed a lot to “good fortune”. I took a look at my nose to a lot of punchlines, so that’s something. But apart from a particularly dark joke involving a dog, little of this film could be considered hilarious. Even Gabriel de Reeves would be described as adorable first, funny.
It is not a big blow against the film, because the drama of the main scenario works if the jokes land or not. The struggle that the ARJ is going through in the first act strikes too hard to ignore, just like the secondary intrigue during its romantic interest Elena (Keke Palmer), which tries to improve its professional life despite the whole world that seems to be against it. Sometimes the jokes are not funny as much as they wine; It is cathartic to see a film capture all the small ways to insult that low wages are often treated.
As with “It’s a Wonderful Life”, there is a dark line here: the main character implicitly envisages suicide during a large part of the film, and “good fortune” keeps these issues that feel present throughout. “Good Fortune” is a dramatic that succeeds better on the dramatic side. It is a “it’s a wonderful life” and a “more fantastic” master of no “. For the big project to return from Aziz Ansari, it is not a triumphant return, but it is a good start.
/ Film assessment: 7 out of 10
“Good Fortune” was presented at first at the Toronto 2025 International Film Festival and is expected to be released on October 17, 2025.
