Gig-economy guardian

There's something gloriously old fashioned about Good Fortune, Aziz Ansari's wholesome buddy comedy that dares to believe in the redemptive power of kindness in an economy designed to chew people up and spit them out.

- RAJA SEN

A still from 'Good Fortune'.

The film is now available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. Like Trading Places, that John Landis treat where Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd taught us that nature trumps nurture and that the real villains are always the men in corner offices, Ansari's film understands that the best comedies hide their moral centre beneath layers of perfectly timed gags and absurdist situations.The 1983 film Trading Places (also available to rent on Amazon) was fundamentally angry. Beneath the mistaken identities and comic set-pieces lurked genuine fury at a system rigged by bored rich men treating human lives as wagering chips. Murphy's Billy Ray Valentine and Aykroyd’s Louis Winthorpe III were demolishing the myth of meritocracy. The films made you laugh so hard you barely noticed you were watching a takedown of American capitalism itself.

Good Fortune attempts something similar, though with considerably more gentleness. Here Seth Rogen plays an amiable millionaire with an enviably effortless life, a life that ends up being usurpsed by a down-and-out working man played by Ansari. As director, Ansari’s voice feels solid throughout, and the film is warmly made.

And then there’s Ansari’s actual voice, that distinctive shrill instrument capable of turning the most mundane observation into a hilarious trill. As both director and actor, he deploys his voice with precision, finding humour in the spaces between what people say and what they mean, in the awkward silences and over-explanations that define contemporary communication.