Good Fortune

Nora and I went to the movies this past Tuesday to see "Good Fortune". If you haven't seen it, but planning to, you may not want to read this post until after doing so. 

The basic plot of the movie is that an angel named Gabriel, played by Keanu Reeves, who is the texting and driving angel, meaning that he lightly taps on the shoulders of people who are texting and driving to refocus their attention to the road, thereby preventing an accident, is dissatisfied with his job. 

He wants to do something bigger.

He wants to save a lost soul.

As it happens, he has been observing a young man named Arj, played by Aziz Ansari, who also wrote and directed the film, who is having a hard time, and starting to doubt his way in life. He is living in his car, his conversations with his father always seem to include comments on how great his cousin is doing, his job at a local hardware store is less than rewarding. 

As luck would have it, however, he meets an extremely rich person named Jeff, played by Seth Rogan, while performing his other job, doing tasks for people who are too busy (or lazy) to do them themselves. In this case, Arj is hired to clean out and organize Jeff's garage. As is happens, Jeff is looking for a new assistant, so they agree to give Arj a one week trial. Things are looking up.

In addition, Arj meets a young woman at the hardware store, and asks her out to dinner. Jeff suggests a restaurant but it turns out to be extremely expensive, and Arj makes the mistake of using the company credit card to pay the bill. Even though Arj tells Jeff that he has spoken to Jeff's accountant about repaying the money, Jeff fires him.

At this point, Arj is back living in his car, he now has lost his task job, and, to make matters worse, after falling asleep at a local Denny's, he comes out to the parking lot to find that his car has been towed. Since he doesn't have the money to get it out of the impound lot, he now has no place to live either.

This is when Gabriel reveals himself to Arj in hopes of rescuing him, as Gabriel thinks that Arj may do something drastic, that he is truly a lost soul.

In an "It's a Wonderful Life" set of scenes, Gabriel shows Arj what he would be missing in his future, what he has to live for. Sadly, those scenes, one in which Arj works for a delivery company that passes out piss bottles for the drivers since the schedules are so tight, there is no room for bathroom breaks, one in which he is married to the girl he recently met, Elena, but they are living at her mother's house, don't do much to convince Arj that life is worth living.

So, Gabriel switches Arj's life with Jeff's to prove to Arj that just because Jeff is rich, he is not happy. 

That is the lead up to the scene that you might see as an ad for the movie, where Gabriel tells his supervisor, Martha, played by Sandra Oh, that when he gave Arj the comfortable life that Jeff led, it did, indeed, solve his problems. 

When Martha demotes Gabriel to human, by taking away his wings, for switching the lives of Arj and Jeff,  Gabriel reveals the truth of the switch to Jeff, because he cannot regain his status unless Arj agrees to switch back. Arj agrees but asks for a few more days living the good life, because he wants to take Elena to Paris for the weekend.

Then, unfortunately, Arj has a car accident, while texting and driving, and is left in a coma. Since he cannot agree to the switch, Gabriel is stuck as a human and Jeff is poor. 

At this point, Hollywood steps in to help right the ship, so to speak, although there are many funny scenes with Gabriel working as a dishwasher, getting his first pay check (why is the actual amount so much less, he asks his boss who explains taxes to him), and Jeff who takes a job delivering food for a company that he previously owned but making very little money.

Arj is not able to date Elena because she is still fighting to make things better at the hardware store by trying to unionize it, and Arj has inadvertently taken on the demeanor of the privileged rich. Also, Arj's father no longer knows him, so, while he can interact with him as a friend, he is no longer his father.

Still, when Arj recovers, he avoids Gabriel and Jeff; he remembers those future scenes and has no desire to live that life.

The turning point comes for both Arj, and fittingly, Gabriel, when Arj realizes that he misses Elena, and for Gabriel when he meets his boss's,wife, someone he saved from an accident when she was texting and driving. He realizes how important that life had been.

In some ways, I thought Gabriel's epiphany much more powerful than Arj's.

So, in the end, Arj agrees to switch back, instantly returning to the Denny's parking lot where he had first found his car was towed. Immediately, someone from Denny's offers him a ride.

In the meantime, Jeff finds the unpaid bill for Arj's car at his house and pays the debt, plus, as the majority stock holder of the food delivery company, he changes the working conditions for his employees, a result of his having performed the job himself.

The film ends with Arj living the life he was shown, but living it happily with Elena, whom he loves, despite where they lived, and, due to the effect of her striving to gain better working conditions for her and her workmates, he quits the delivery job, inspiring all of this co-workers to do the same.

A happy ending.

But is it realistic?

Of course, the point of going to the movies, of entertainment, is to suspend reality, at least for a little while. And, while I applaud the moral about always trying to improve conditions, for oneself and one's fellow workers, have, in fact, often bemoaned the success of the rich and powerful to convince working class people that unions are bad, unnecessary, even as they suppress wages and limit benefits, I can't get my head around the idea that Jeff would actually change his behavior just because he spent a few weeks living in the real world.

Possible, perhaps, but likely, no.

Just look at what is happening as we speak with far too many of the really rich people who are either bending the knee to the wannabe king by donating to his inauguration fund or his devastation of the White House, or are actively supporting him as he continues to grant them tax breaks, and allows them to bend the laws to their advantage. 

Too many of the those who could actually make a difference in limiting Trump's attempts to dominate law firms, universities, corporations, are falling in line, simply because they value their riches over the future of America. 

They are supplicant, when they have the means to resist.

Maybe Good Fortune will resonate with enough regular people to remind them what is really important in life, love, knowledge of and contentment with one's identity, and, that you can't take it with you is a reminder of those beliefs. Even more so, perhaps more people will realize that the accumulation of wealth might be a goal promoted by the angel who was jettisoned from heaven.  

That the real definition of Good Fortune is less about money, and more about happiness and a balance between striving for comfort and improving the lives of those who flit in and out of your life. 

And about eating a really good taco with friends and those you love.