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📓 Friday, January 9, 2026 — 9:28 p.m.
I rented Good Fortune on Apple TV on Monday because I was down and depressed and I just wanted a movie to distract myself. I didn’t even know what it was about. I sat in my blue comfortable chair, put my feet up on the matching ottoman, and hit play. I like Aziz Ansari, Seth Rogen is funny, but really… I love Keanu Reeves. That’s the real reason.
And while I’m watching it—sad as hell—I’m thinking: fuck… why does this feel like me?
The movie’s basically three characters:
• Gabriel (Keanu Reeves), an entry-level guardian angel who’s tired of being entry-level. He wants to move up.
• Arj (Aziz), broke in L.A., barely surviving, living out of his car, grinding multiple jobs and still not getting ahead.
• Jeff (Seth Rogen), rich, comfortable, and kind of oblivious to what struggle actually feels like because he’s never had to live inside it.
Arj’s dad is on him—asking how he’s doing, what’s up with his apartment, why he’s not like his cousin who’s doing great. And Arj’s reality is ugly: working too much, still broke, still stuck. The kind of stuck where you’re moving all day but it feels like you’re going nowhere.
Then Gabriel decides: I’m going to teach this guy a lesson.
He reveals himself like, “I’m your guardian angel.” And Arj’s like, what the fuck? Gabriel tries to show him why he should look forward to his future, but when he shows him what’s coming… Arj is still getting dragged—pissing in bottles, driving an Amazon truck. Now he has a girlfriend, Elena, but he’s living in her parents’ house. They eventually move out to Texas, where they have to lose their dog because he can’t afford the vet… like life just keeps taking.
So Gabriel thinks he’s about to prove a point: “Money doesn’t solve everything. It makes people miserable.”
And then he flips it. He switches the roles.
Arj gets the rich life. Jeff gets the broke life.
And Arj’s response is basically: what downside? My problems melted away. My stress dropped. My life got lighter. I can breathe. What are you talking about?
That’s where the movie really starts.
The taco scene felt like real L.A.
The scene that stuck with me most was simple: Arj eating street tacos with the girl named Elena—his coworker, who he meets at the hardware store at one of his many jobs. He wants to date her. Tacos de carne asada, tacos al pastor—that late-night L.A. corner food. And she’s so nice to him. What I liked is she doesn’t act too good for it. She’s there, present, down for it. I remember thinking, huh… you could maybe find somebody like that.
But the deeper part is what it did to me.
While they’re eating, I’m thinking: bro, I sell to those people. I sell to street vendors like that. I’ve seen the struggle up close. I know what it is. So watching it on screen felt weirdly accurate—like the movie was finally looking at the real L.A. instead of the postcard.
And that’s what Good Fortune did well: it showed the L.A. that a lot of people actually live in. Not the rich L.A. Not the bullshit L.A. The L.A. of regular people—immigrant L.A., working L.A., the “barely surviving” L.A. And that’s a gigantic part of this city.
Jeff finally feels the struggle
Another part that hit was when Seth Rogen’s character (Jeff) finally gets flipped into the broke life and he can’t handle it. There’s a moment where he’s basically like:
“Dude… this fucking sucks. Who the fuck does this? What a fucking struggle. There are people who have it worse than me—what the fuck? How can anybody live this fucking life?”
And you can feel it: his whole worldview collapses. Because his old life was comfortable. Zoom meetings were chill. The rest of the day was his. Vacations. Space. Ease.
Now he can’t even afford a roof over his head.
That moment matters because it’s not preachy. It’s just honest: when you’ve never touched the floor, you don’t know how hard the floor is.
loved the movie
I enjoyed Good Fortune a lot. I thought it was great. And yeah… I bought the 4K bluray.
They knocked it out of the park.
You get a lot of the real L.A.—not the bullshit L.A.
Plástico man moveth.
Question: Have you ever worked your ass off and still felt like life was keeping you stuck at the same level?
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