Seth Rogan is EVERYWHERE in 2025, including in Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, a film that harkens back to body swap classics like Scrooged and Trading Places. Ansari directs and stars as Arj, a struggling film editor who sleeps in his car and patches together gig work. Gabriel, a rule-following guardian angel played with wonderfully puzzled calm by Keanu Reeves, hopes to make a difference by helping Arj find meaning in his life. Their collision sets off a cosmic experiment that swaps Arj’s life with Jeff’s, a venture capitalist played by Seth Rogen
After being banished to Earth, Reeves’ Gabriel must learn difficult life lessons. He struggles, but overcomes to experience many of life’s joys: tacos and dancing. He never gives up on Jeff, even in the most challenging nights of sleeping in their car, and never gives up on Arj, even when he promises to return to normalcy. Those are the film’s best scenes, quiet detours in food lines, hardware aisles, and after-hours sidewalks where advice lands softly instead of sermonizing.
Keke Palmer’s Elena, a hardware-store union organizer with a quick grin and quicker conscience, grounds the story in real human experiences, while Sandra Oh’s Martha, Gabriel’s celestial manager, supplies the driest laughs by treating miracles like paperwork.
Many lessons can be learned from this film: Money doesn’t fix you, society rewards selective blindness, proximity changes your perspective, and gratitude beats entitlement.
Ultimately, the film works. Reeves’s stillness is a comedy engine, Rogen makes vanity weirdly likable, and Ansari plays Arj as a guy who can taste hope and fear in the same bite. Good Fortune is not subtle, but it is generous. It asks us to look longer, tip better, and stop mistaking comfort for character.
