Good Fortune

The 2025 release Good Fortune combines elements of the 1983 comedy Trading Places—a long-time Solari favorite—and the many fantasy-dramas (ranging from 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life to 1987’s Wings of Desire to 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife) with plot lines involving angels who take an extra interest in human affairs.

In this instance, Keanu Reeves departs from his Matrix and John Wick action roles to play a sad-sack angel named Gabriel who aspires to do more than his assigned low-level beat of saving people who are texting while driving. When he impulsively oversteps his bounds and lets down-and-out Los Angeles gig economy worker Arj (played by the film’s first-time director, Aziz Ansari) swap lifestyles with venture capitalist Jeff (played by Seth Rogen), the switch risks becoming permanent unless Gabriel can rectify his interference.

The comedic elements are quite entertaining—the film pokes fun at cold plunges and suggests that even angels can’t resist salsa dancing and a good L.A. taco—but it also sheds a surprisingly forthright light on current economic challenges, showing hard-working people who are barely making it even when holding down two (or more) jobs. Sleeping in cars, job replacement by robots, the desperation behind plasma donation, and the impact when someone cavalierly stiffs a service worker’s tip—these details add substance to the film’s otherwise humorous tone.

One of the plot devices that underscores the deepening chasm separating the obliviously wealthy from everyone else is its depiction of the phenomenon of “time arbitrage” in the form of paid “line-standing” (hiring someone to stand in line for you). As a Substack writer has observed, “outsourcing patience has become a booming market”—and though paid queueing may represent a “practical exchange between those rich in money but short on time, and those with time to spare but short on cash,” it also highlights economic disparities.

Good Fortune is not as good as Trading Places, which provided an interesting window on deep state tactics, but it’s a fun watch that makes the viewer both laugh and think.