Today, I (quite unintentionally) watched two films about the uneven distribution and misuse of wealth in today’s world. They were both labeled comedies—one by a veteran Oscar-winning director and the other a directorial debut. And my enjoyment of them did not line up as I suspected.
The Laundromat is Steven Soderbergh’s 2019 ensemble film “based on real secrets” that attempts to give the Traffic treatment to humanity’s real drug: money. In other words, it tells multiple intersecting stories about people at different levels of a hopelessly complex and Hydra-headed systemic vice.
It was a thorough exposé and a research-heavy script, but it didn’t really work as a movie. Yes, it made me feel that a handful of corrupt billionaires exploit a system too confusing and labyrinthine for laymen to understand, thereby going unpunished. But I already thought that. It looked slick and featured cool metafictional techniques, but in the end, it literally stripped off all pretense and left us with Meryl Streep (as herself) on a soundstage telling us that financial and societal collapse may be “just around the corner” and that wealth-based injustices must be solved now. Then (and I kid you not, sadly) she posed as the Statue of Liberty until the final blackout.
Oddly, it used the film form well but ended up not working as a film for that very reason. It was like watching Moneyball or The Big Short—an unentertaining research presentation read by famous actors in crazy makeup. If you’re looking to feel powerless and lectured, The Laundromat will give you just that with a side of a sloppy misunderstanding of The Beatitudes.
Good Fortune (in theatres now) is written and directed by Aziz Ansari as a sort of postmodern It’s a Wonderful Life with a casual middle finger in Capra’s direction. I know that description sounds pretty negative, but the film is perfectly fine. It is utterly unpretentious and feels like a nineties comedy someone taped off TV. (Man, that sounds bad, too! I don’t mean it that way.) It is a good movie rated R for Fs. (I just made that phrase up, and I think I’ll keep it.)
In this movie, Keanu Reeves plays Ted-as-an-angel. (The script must have been written too woo him specifically, as the character is so vacuous and is constantly being called out as “super hot”.) So, Loser Angel (his character is actually named Gabriel, somewhat unimaginatively) is tasked with last-minute saves from texting-and-driving accidents. His wings are too small to fly. He desires to be more important (bad sign when angels start doing that), so he tries to be a Clarence figure to Ansari’s Arj, who is living in his car and barely subsisting through demeaning app-based service jobs.
Gabriel uses his angel magic to give Arj the life of an obscenely rich tech bro played by Seth Rogen. Rogen’s character in turn gets Arj’s life. To Gabriel’s surprise, Arj prefers his rich life and refuses to return to his previous one. “I tried to show him that money wouldn’t solve all his problems,” Gabriel tells his superior. “It seems to have solved most of his problems.”
I won’t spoil the plot beyond that, but it’s all foreseeable. That unpretentious quality is what makes the film refreshing. It’s been a long time since I saw a movie content to be itself. The film does not commit Gabriel’s sin of trying to be more than it is.
The problem of wealth is presented much more simply than in Soderbergh’s film, which oozes with ambition. The small focus on four characters (the fourth being Keke Palmer as Arj’s girlfriend) makes it more digestible, more relatable, and more hopeful than the globe-covering multiple storylines of The Laundromat. By embracing its conventional simplicity, Good Fortune ends up saying more about the same issues. It also remains enjoyable to watch and is a rare Hollywood film that understands the real lives of working-class Americans.
It was nice to see Aziz doing his thing again, and Rogen was perfectly cast as the oblivious bill-bully (I just made that term up, too). Palmer is her always charming self, and Reeves is…well, he’s still playing Ted, but it’s fine for the character. The only thing in the movie that made me roll my eyes was the running commentary on how attractive Keanu Reeves apparently is. He’s not, people. By all accounts, he’s a wonderful guy, but handsome and talented are not words I would put on his resumé. Good Fortune is a safe, fun movie with real laughs and real heart…and nothing more.