FILM REVIEW
GOOD FORTUNE
Rated R
98 Minutes
Released October 17th
Good Fortune may be the funniest movie I’ve seen all year. The characters and situations are hilarious, it’s brilliantly written, and full of satire and innuendo. The film is populated with genuine and fascinating characters who reference our own lives in their earnest attempts to pull meaning and pleasure from their daily existence.
The concept of switching lives is a classic facet of storytelling, but the way this story does it is highly unusual, and the catalyst is a good-hearted, well-intentioned but bumbling angel named “Gabriel,” played masterfully by Keanu Reeves. The situations that Gabriel and his earthly charges, “Arj” and “Jeff,” find themselves in are priceless contemporary commentary on the quirks of our society.
Gabriel’s stoic, placid countenance belies the existential crisis he is dealing with as an angel who has lost confidence in his ability to do his job. His outer calm balances the skittish, hyper Arj, played by Aziz Ansari. Seth Rogen completes the trio as the grounded but insulated innocent, Jeff, perplexed with circumstances that seem to be out of his control, wondering how he got wherever he is. Carter Burwell’s music choices set the tone for each scene beautifully.
Ansari is originally from South Carolina, where his parents established their home after emigrating from Tamil Nadu, India. He was a math and business major in college, but he also began doing comedy, starring in the sketch comedy show Human Giant. He was accepted into “Upright Citizens Brigade,” one of the top sketch comedy troupes in the country. He still tours as a stand-up comedian and has appeared on TV since 2004 and in film since 2006. Ansari created and starred in the TV show Master of None. Good Fortune is his first film to be released, where he is not only the star, but also writer and director.
Reeves has succeeded in creating a stellar career after a childhood full of upheavals. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Reeves’ family moved several times as he was growing up, to Sydney, Manhattan, and Toronto. His parents divorced early in his life, and his mom, a showgirl and costume designer, remarried and divorced twice more. Reeves decided he wanted to be an actor after performing in Romeo and Juliet in 10th grade. He auditioned for the School of the Arts in Toronto but was rejected, so he dropped out of high school and moved to LA to pursue his career.
He did commercials (including Kellogg’s Corn Flakes), theatre, and small roles in TV movies, and in 1986, his ice hockey skills won him a small role in the Rob Lowe movie, Youngblood. Reeves continued to work steadily, winning critics’ attention in the role of “Ted Logan” in the 1989 classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Audiences loved his goofy character. He learned to surf for his role in Point Break (1991). To avoid being typecast in comedy, Reeves leaned towards dramatic projects. 1994’s Speed, opposite Sandra Bullock, made him a star. Then he teamed with the Wachowskis on the Matrix trilogy (2001-2003), learning over 200 martial arts moves to give realism to his character.
He was hugely successful in the John Wick action/revenge films from 2014 to 2019. It’s hard to believe that one of today’s biggest stars once managed a pasta shop in Toronto and was a skate sharpener at an ice rink, or that as a teen, he once wore a bunny costume to a Halloween party that his mom had designed for Dolly Parton.
Reeves is a private person and tends to let his work speak for him. Two of his idols are David Lean and Peter O’Toole (director and star of the classic film Lawrence of Arabia). Reeves is a flawless comedian. He has an instinct for deadpan comedy, as well as for stoic dramatic delivery. Both originating from the same essence. There is so much going on beneath the surface with Reeves, you don’t need to see the outer intensity – it’s all percolating deep inside.
Keke Palmer, who plays “Elena,” is another magnetic presence on screen. She has been a performer ever since she belted out an extraordinary solo of “Jesus Loves Me” in church at the age of 5. She starred on TV in her teen years in the title role in True Jackson, VP TV series, won acclaim for her starring role in Akeela and the Bee, was the first Black “Cinderella” on Broadway in 2014, trained for 7 weeks to play a female quarterback in Longshot, and turned in an exceptional performance in Jordan Peele’s Nope in 2022.
While her career trajectory may seem like that Cinderella story she starred in, Palmer has fought adversity in her life with heroic strength. The always-entertaining Seth Rogen is wonderful as the comedic foil, absurdly rich tech exec Jeff, the “innocent” wondering how he got involved in this mess, and Sandra Oh shines/glows as archangel “Marsha.”
With all the hostility and divisiveness currently being directed against a multitude of cultural backgrounds in our country, we need movies like Good Fortune right now. We need angels like Gabriel to keep us on the virtuous path. You realize, while watching Good Fortune, that our society’s variety of ethnicities and traditions, and our ability to laugh at ourselves, are precisely what make our hugely complicated country work.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
