Aziz Ansari\u2019s directorial debut Good Fortune comes to cinemas this month, and stars Keanu Reeves as a\u00a0guardian angel named Gabriel. He has small wings that make him unable to fly, he is described as \u200b\u201cbudget\u201d by his latest assignment, Arj (Ansari), a\u00a0man living in poverty working for a\u00a0belligerent billionaire boss (Seth Rogen). Gabriel tries to convince Arj that money won\u2019t solve all his problems by swapping his life with his boss\u2019, only to discover it, in fact, did make him happier, leading to Gabriel to lose his wings and live among the mortals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The film offers\u00a0a\u00a0modern, comedic take on the myth of angels, who as character archetypes have been a\u00a0subject of fascination for Hollywood for decades. In recent times, these portrayals have been far from what you would find in a\u00a0religious text, yet beneath the satire lies something altogether more tangible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Get more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/p>\n
Regardless of belief, most of us can conjure an image of what an angel is, likely gleaned from from popular culture: serene, beautiful beings who take the form of humans with giant, white wings, often with a\u00a0halo. They are the manifestation of the divine, as we use words such as \u200b\u201cangelic\u201d to describe people or things that feel pure, or good. In film, the trauma of living society still smarting from the scars of global conflict often came with soothing and kindly angels \u2013 it was Kathleen Byron\u2019s calm, stoic angel who ushered in lines of fallen soldiers in 1946\u2019s A\u00a0Matter Of Life And Death. And while he famously didn\u2019t have his wings yet, it was the warm-hearted Clarence (Henry Travers) who convinced George Bailey (James Stewart) that it is, indeed, a\u00a0wonderful life.<\/p>\n
More recently, Emma Thompson played perhaps the most classically biblical portrayal in 2003\u2019s Angels In America, a\u00a0celestial being appearing through a\u00a0beam of light, commanding the sick and despairing Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) to be a\u00a0prophet to a\u00a0broken world. Set at the time of the Aids crisis, and with the world on the cusp of a\u00a0new millennium, writer Tony Kushner drew on our perception of angels in order to confront the collective grief of that\u00a0era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, however, popular portrayals of God\u2019s messengers have become more interpretational, particularly in Hollywood films of the last thirty years. In Good Fortune, Reeves\u2019 na\u00efve, clumsy Gabriel is more in keeping with contemporary comedic depictions, ones that imagine these heavenly presences as being almost as flawed as humans are.<\/p>\n
Perhaps one of the most insightful, albeit ill-tempered angels can be found in Dogma, the controversial 1999 religious satire written and directed by Kevin Smith. A\u00a0practicing Catholic at the time, the Clerks filmmaker gave a\u00a0sincere if irreverent take on faith, embodied by the performance of Alan Rickman as The Metatron, the voice of God. He\u2019s presented as resentful, tired, and disdainful of humans, referring to them as \u200b\u201cbottom feeders\u201d. He tells tales about the trial and error of Creation, such as going through \u200b\u201cfive Adams\u201d before realising humans couldn\u2019t comprehend the voice of The Almighty (Alanis Morrissette).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The acid wit aside, however, there is an understanding that God\u2019s chosen people are still, well, people. When lead Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) learns she is a\u00a0descendent of Jesus,\u00a0she breaks down and calls the responsibility \u200b\u201ctoo big\u201d.<\/a> The Metatron sympathises with her, recalling the pleadings of a\u00a0young Jesus as he learns of his place in the world. Compassion, and an acknowledgement that life is imperfect both above and below, is a\u00a0radical departure from what may be expected.<\/p>\n Another alternative take on the angel is John Travolta in 1996\u2019s Michael. Playing an Archangel with a\u00a0hint of Vincent Vega cool, he encounters three sceptical journalists who find his dishevelled appearance, love of women, and claim to have invented queuing at odds with their knowledge of angels. During the course of a\u00a0chaotic road trip,\u00a0the easy-going Seraphim tries to teach them that the world can be mended through \u200b\u201csmall miracles<\/a>\u201d, as well as appreciating the beauty in everyday life. Michael is the polar opposite to Metatron, and director Nora Ephron imagines an angel as someone unburdened by the problems of the world given the knowledge of what awaits, and so intends to \u200b\u201chave a\u00a0little fun\u201d while he\u2019s\u00a0here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aziz Ansari\u2019s directorial debut Good Fortune comes to cinemas this month, and stars Keanu Reeves as a\u00a0guardian angel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-82347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}