A unique story which you will think about long after
It takes no stretch of the imagination to see Keanu Reeves as an angel. You only need minimal googling to find a list of his good deeds and kindness. What takes creativity is seeing him as a none-too-bright, incompetent angel.
Keanu Reeves is Gabriel, the Angel of Texting and Driving. He is the angel that taps people on the shoulder as they have their phone in hand, stopping them from causing car accidents. At an angel staff meeting, run by Martha the Angel Manager (played by Sandra Oh looking totally divine) Gabriel hears Azrael, the Angel of Lost Souls, talking about a lost soul that he helped, directing them back on to the path of happiness. Gabriel wants to be able to do that, to find more meaning in what he does.
Meanwhile Aziz Ansari is a struggling movie documentarian, Arj, who is living in his car and working odd jobs. He works at a hardware chain while also working for a tasking app company, where he completes odd jobs for a few dollars and 5-star ratings. He comes to Gabriel’s attention when Gabriel saves him from a car crash while texting and driving, and Gabriel starts watching him.
Arj takes on a task to help wealthy investor Jeff (Seth Rogen), and the two get along well, with Jeff offering Arj a trial job for the week. Arj, does great, then manages to screw this up by using his work credit card to take his hardware shop colleague, Elena, out for dinner. This kicks off everything going wrong – he is fired, his car is repossessed and the tasking app has booted him out.
Gabriel decides then that he can help save a lost soul – and this is where the movie really takes off. Gabriel talks to Arj, and explains money and success are not what they are cracked up to be, and to make the point, swaps Arj’s life with Jeff’s.
Arj is ecstatic, and has a life of comfort, parties and friends, with Jeff as his assistant. Gabriel is distraught, because money can’t solve problems, but, “It seems to have solved most of his problems.” And when Martha finds out, she is not happy, and tells Gabriel to swap them back and fix this, and takes away his wings.
What follows is hilarious, uncomfortable and fabulous. In some ways, it is a modern-day fable, showing that many commonly thrown around self-help statements are complete rubbish, because you can’t think your way happy when you’re living in your car and starving. As Jeff says later, “We need them to be poor and doing badly for us to be doing well.” Ansari wrote this story as he wanted to write about the things that nobody talks about.
I think one of my highlights is what Gabriel discovers about being human. He finds a Mexican restaurant/ bar and realises that his favourite things are tacos and dancing.
The soundtrack is also just as good as the story – it starts with The Go-Betweens’ “Streets of Your Town” and finishes with Real Life’s “Send Me an Angel”. Yes, I’m pretty sure a Gen X Aussie was part of the soundtrack crew!
I absolutely loved this movie. So many little things that tied together along the way, plus it’s not often you find a story these days where you can’t see how it might end or predict what’ll happen next – this is it.
If you need a holy(!) unique story that’ll have you laughing and thinking about it for a long time afterwards, dance on down to see Good Fortune!
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