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Good Fortune, this whimsical comedy from comedian Aziz Ansari, is facing challenges at the box office. Many reasons may explain its reception: Its generic title fails to express the film's distinctive charm. Its screenplay is often moralizing and heavy-handed with the messages. Its performances seem flat and presentational, as if the actors are reciting dialogue directly from a script. Moreover, the film comes during an era of economic anxiety and disparity, that may make audiences less open to a narrative that suggests rich people have all the advantages while the poor possess heart.

However, this is what the movie stands out: It's original, bold, imaginative, often funny, and undoubtedly timely. And, it provides a great the actor hangout movie.

Reeves as an Guardian: A Familiar Performance

I have not considered Reeves to be a good performer. The actor's monotonal delivery and consistent look of slight perturbation has consistently felt limited, regardless of his broad range of roles he's played over the last 40 of his career. Smart directors have placed him in parts where his rigidity fits perfectly, from My Own Private Idaho to the sci-fi classic to the action series. But nearly all of these roles required Reeves to seem tough, distant, or removed.

In Good Fortune, the actor plays Gabriel, one minor protecting celestial being tasked with watching over people who use their phones when driving. The character's entire job involves remaining in his vehicles and gently touching their shoulders when they're about to crash, warning them so the driver brake in time. However, when standing high above the city, looking down on humanity like an alternative interpretation of the angel in Wim Wenders' classic film the angel story, Gabriel gets ambitious. He wants to become an exceptional guardian and a savior of wayward souls.

A Surprising Turn: Reeves as a Human

So, Gabriel presents his presence to struggling odd-jobber Arj (played by Aziz Ansari), who is living in his car and cursing his situation. Gabriel proceeds to exchanges the man with the existence of stupidly wealthy tech mogul Jeff (played by the comedian). This idea of the experiment was that Arj to understand Jeff's existence has major drawbacks, and gratefully return to his original circumstances, similar to the character from the classic film.

Issue was, the character right away realizes how Jeff's problems (boring meetings, expensive heating bill) prove minor and easily solved using money. Arj further realizes how becoming affluent provides endless chances for self-indulgent enjoyment. He shows zero interest in returning to his own life, and the angel is unable to compel Arj to return. Then, more trouble arrives: Because of overstepping his mandate and messing with the balance of the world, the character is fired from his angel job, and transformed into a mortal.

A Revelation: Keanu Reeves Smiles

I was never convinced by the actor as an angel who has big dreams and a burning wish to effect change. He turns in a familiar somewhat constipated performance he has consistently providing for no less than the last 3 ten-year periods. Watching him in the role of angel that has recently turned human for the first time, however, proved to be highly entertaining, for a reason that really astonished viewers at first: It's an element new for Reeves. Or to be precise, something from the past.

Early into the character's confusing experience being a mortal, clinging to the wealthy character (who Gabriel exchanged into Arj's hand-to-mouth life and underemployed situation), the character begins hesitantly trying out human activities like eating and consuming food. Then Reeves grins. Authentically, cautiously, happily smiles. (This is a lot much believable than the smile on the promotional image, which looks artificially added.)

The Reason This Grin Is Significant

It really surprised me to realize just how unexpected and refreshing that smile felt. At what point was the last time we saw Keanu Reeves grin in a movie in which he was not expressing malice, irony, or resentment? He likely attempts it somewhere in the recent ill-conceived Bill & Ted Face the Music, however I'm not returning to that mess to find out. Reeves has been stuck with grim, violent, introspective, or just solemn characters for so long that merely seeing Reeves grin felt like seeing an entirely different actor.

While the story goes on, Gabriel ends up having to get a kitchen position, which fails to provide sufficient to live on, and Gabriel starts smoking heavily out of disappointment. Just the image of the actor in a disposable plastic restaurant cap, his late-career signature locks pulled back in an unglamorous bun, leaning against a building and puffing on a smoke, proves worth watching. His kitchen worker attire completely alters his face and posture: Unexpectedly, the lean, suited action star of his famous films is awkward, ordinary, and much increasingly human.

A Joy of Viewing Reeves Relax

Good Fortune isn't always fun to watch, especially when Ansari (that also wrote the screenplay) must find plausible explanations for {Ar