The Angel, the Tech Bro, and the Gig Worker: Classic Cinema Meets Today’s Inequality
Opening night at the Toronto International Film Festival buzzed not for a gritty drama or Oscar bait biopic, but for an audacious comedy—Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune. Drawing on the DNA of 1930s screwball comedies like “Sullivan’s Travels” and “My Man Godfrey,” yet infused with distinctly contemporary anxieties, Ansari’s debut feature holds a funhouse mirror up to the American economy.
Imagine this: a struggling gig worker, Arj (played by Ansari himself), wakes to find his modest Los Angeles existence swapped for the opulent lifestyle of Jeff (Seth Rogen), a Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose daily worries rarely extend beyond optimizing his morning cold plunge. The reason for their new circumstances? An overworked, underappreciated angel named Gabriel, played with rare gentleness by Keanu Reeves, has had enough of humanity’s soul-numbing inequalities and decides—divine intervention style—to shake things up. Keke Palmer and Sandra Oh round out the celestial cast, as labor organizer Elena and angelic superior Martha, respectively.
Beyond the premise’s comic absurdity, the film’s heart beats in its uncompromising look at modern economic disparity. Ansari reportedly spent months embedded with gig workers and union organizers, “riding along, delivering food, standing outside late-night diners chatting over lukewarm coffee,” as he told the TIFF press corps. That studious approach to authenticity sets Good Fortune apart from the rote class-swap comedies of the past.
Swapping Empathy for Entertainment—Or the Other Way Around?
Body swap narratives—think “Trading Places” or “Freaky Friday”—have a rich satirical legacy. Yet, as Harvard film scholar Lisa Rogin points out, “Ansari’s script isn’t just interested in laughs; it’s a guided tour through the palaces and purgatories of twenty-first century work.” His Los Angeles is a place where tech wealth is measured not in top hats or monocles, but in amenities: cold plunge pools, sauna rituals, and meditation apps. The symbols have changed, but the systemic divide has not.
Audiences may come for the laughs, but they’ll stay for the poignancy. It’s not simply that Arj stumbles through the trappings of extreme wealth—he finds its comforts bizarrely empty, its routines as grinding in their own way as any marathon Doordash shift. Meanwhile, Jeff, suddenly thrust into the world of hourly wages, confronts the brittle precarity underpinning most American lives. He faces not only the indignity of low wages, but also the grace and solidarity of those who have no choice but to band together. Ansari’s script is adept at landing laughs without punching down; a scene at a union meeting, guided by Palmer’s Elena, shines with both humor and truth.
Keanu Reeves, whose casting as a gentle, philosophical angel marks a sharp turn from his usual John Wick persona, described the film to TIFF attendees as, “a good hug—funny, smart, and full of things to think about.” His performance grounds the film’s chaos with serenity, revealing the resilience (and frailty) within all his charges—celestial or otherwise. Audiences looking for zingers and pratfalls will certainly find them, but as Ansari makes clear, Good Fortune is designed to prod viewers into questioning the supposed morality of the modern meritocracy.
“What if the only difference between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is the luck of where you started, or the costume you happened to be wearing this morning?” Ansari muses in a pivotal scene—a question that lingers well after the laughs subside.
Inspired by the Past, Aiming for Change in the Present
Why revisit an old Hollywood tradition now? Ansari’s answer is timely. According to Pew Research, the wealth gap between America’s top earners and its working class has reached heights not seen since before World War II. The gig economy’s relentless churn—the central backdrop of Good Fortune—has left more than 56 million Americans with no paid sick days, no benefits, and no guarantee of tomorrow’s paycheck. This reality screams for empathy, not just entertainment.
Classic Hollywood could only hint at the suffering beneath the vaudeville. “We’ve always needed stories that humanize both sides of the wealth chasm,” says Dr. Rogin. “But seldom have those stories been so urgently contemporary.” With political battles still raging over basic labor rights, and Silicon Valley riches increasingly disconnected from the lived reality of most citizens, Good Fortune becomes more than escapist fare—it is, at its core, an invitation to radical empathy.
“It’s easy to forget that our lives are shaped by forces—some arbitrary, some orchestrated—that benefit the few over the many,” Sandra Oh’s supervisor-angel reminds Gabriel in the film’s climax. Perhaps in watching Jeff and Arj stumble through one another’s worlds, some will be inspired to challenge inequities that go far beyond movie magic.
Beneath the winking nods to Hollywood’s golden age, Ansari’s debut is a rallying cry, a sly but sincere plea for a society where luck, birth, or job title matter less than our shared humanity. There’s nothing old-fashioned about that.
