A lot of one’s experience of Aziz Ansari’s feature directorial debut, Good Fortune, might rest on what they think of him as a storyteller. A stand-up comedian/actor/writer/director for nearly two decades now, Ansari turned to direction with the Netflix series, Master of None, a semi-autobiographical take on his experience as a brown actor in America, as he goes through the typical ups and downs on both personal and professional fronts. Co-created with Alan Yang, Master of None, in my opinion, is a sublime meditation on modern American society, as we see it through the eyes of Dev (a fictitious version of Ansari himself), and its commentary on immigrant parents, dating culture, and thorny issues like sexual harassment on public transport or at the workplace – but they’re dealt with his customary light touch. Like most comedians working, Ansari has this tendency to bleed out the theatrics of the most unsettling moments in life – stressing on how most life-changing moments can seem mundane in real life. This gentle rebuke as a storytelling choice is instantly recognisable as something from Ansari’s canon.

Gabriel, a working-class angel with disproportionately small wings, has a meagre job of protecting people who text and drive. Wanting to accomplish something more meaningful, Gabriel intervenes in Arj’s life. Only to realise he might have bitten more than he can chew. Reeves is an excellent choice as Gabriel – considering few actors could sell the visual of someone eating a hamburger for the first time, better than him. 

Ansari’s film uses many tropes from supernatural comedies (and bangingly mainstream, if one thinks of movies like Freaky Friday, Bruce Almighty) and feels like a throwback during an especially cynical time. When social inequities are more brutal than they’ve ever been. As Arj has to resort to donating plasma to pay for his survival – Jeff alternates between a sauna and cold plunge, and whiles away time in his swimming pool – in between genial zoom meetings. What starts off as an experiment by Gabriel to drill into Arj that money doesn’t mean absence of problems, soon becomes a comedy of errors when Arj realises that it can solve most problems. Similarly Jeff, who is an investor in a food delivery app, discovers the hardship in Arj’s life as a gig worker. In two different scenes, both Jeff and Gabriel are confounded by their earnings in a social structure – where they’ve spent working an 8-hour rigorous shift, and yet can’t seem to even pay for their existence. As the current generation might say: math isn’t math-ing. 

Good Fortune doesn’t say a whole lot that is new, but it’s a timely, sweet, rose-tinted indictment of the social inequities in 2025. Arj doesn’t want to go back to his old life, because of how bleak it is. Meanwhile, Jeff is shattered after realising how brutal the gig economy truly is. It’s an interesting choice on Ansari’s part to make the billionaire investor not a stereotypical, scheming villain, but one who is just out of touch with reality. Gabriel, who was demoted from a small-time angel to a human being, gets the entire human experience. From the agony of meagre paychecks to the ecstasy of tacos, chicken nuggets and finding companionship inside a salsa club – he realises the many challenges that people undergo, but what also keeps them hopeful. 

For me, the principal false note of the film was Elena (Keke Palmer) – a fellow gig-worker with Arj at a Home Depot-like store. She’s trying to unionise the workers, so that the owners of the store can treat them better. However, Elena’s character is seen through Arj’s eyes as this ‘badass’ and idealistic young woman, without much interiority of her own. It’s a 21st century version of the manic-pixie dream girl (the girl who organises, protests against existing power structures) – and unfortunately Ansari plays it too straight with Elena. I also felt a character’s transformation felt rushed towards the end, even for a ‘fairytale’ with literal guardian angels.  

However, these bumps aside, Good Fortune still feels like a balm for our cynical times. Especially, in a time when most pieces of ‘content’ try to provoke our worst impulses, I’m all for a character’s response to one of his life’s worst days being – “Oh man!” in Aziz Ansari’s childlike, nasal voice. In many ways, Good Fortune is the anti-thesis of a film like Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days – which stresses on minimalism as a way of life in a hyper-capitalistic society. And yet, they both land on a similar note – despite all advertising, human beings determine their own happiness and contentment. In a pessimistic time, this is a hopeful realisation to conclude with. 

*Good Fortune is playing in theatres

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