"Sure, it's hard to live anywhere right now, but the disparity between the haves (who've been cannibalizing creative industries for decades) and have-nots (y'know, the creatives carrying the industry on their backs) has never been quite so wide. No one can sustain a job in their dream field anymore; no one can afford even the most modest lifestyle. As Aziz Ansari claims in the opening moments of his directorial debut, Good Fortune, the American Dream is no more."
"A documentary editor in a career drought, Ansari's Arj has long slipped past rock bottom. He did everything right - the college degree, the honest job - yet the only consistent gigs he can get now are the ones he finds on the labor app TaskSargeant. He stands in line for people at restaurants; he assembles furniture and babysits. None of it is enough to secure an apartment, so he sleeps in his car and showers at the gym."
"After losing yet another promising job, Arj is about ready to give up on life - and if it weren't for his "budget guardian angel," he might have put himself out of his misery a long time ago. Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) is a lower-level celestial being: He's responsible for stopping countless Angelenos from texting, driving, and perishing in car accidents, but his jurisdiction ends there. In Arj, however, he sees a lost soul who's lost all zest for life, all hope for the future."
Los Angeles under late-stage capitalism amplifies the gulf between wealthy exploiters of creative industries and struggling creatives who can no longer sustain dream careers or basic living standards. Arj, a documentary editor, endures a career drought and relies on gig work from the labor app TaskSargeant, standing in line for others, assembling furniture, and babysitting while sleeping in his car and showering at the gym. He briefly assists an airheaded venture capitalist, then loses that job after charging dinner to a company card. After sinking toward suicide, Arj attracts Gabriel, a lower-level guardian angel tasked with preventing texting-related deaths, who tries to restore Arj's purpose despite dwindling odds.
Read at Inverse
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