Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut Good Fortune comes to cinemas this month, and stars Keanu Reeves as a guardian angel named Gabriel. He has small wings that make him unable to fly, he is described as “budget” by his latest assignment, Arj (Ansari), a man living in poverty working for a belligerent billionaire boss (Seth Rogen). Gabriel tries to convince Arj that money won’t solve all his problems by swapping his life with his boss’, only to discover it, in fact, did make him happier, leading to Gabriel to lose his wings and live among the mortals.
The film offers a modern, comedic take on the myth of angels, who as character archetypes have been a subject of fascination for Hollywood for decades. In recent times, these portrayals have been far from what you would find in a religious text, yet beneath the satire lies something altogether more tangible.
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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 halo. They are the manifestation of the divine, as we use words such as “angelic” 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 – it was Kathleen Byron’s calm, stoic angel who ushered in lines of fallen soldiers in 1946’s A Matter Of Life And Death. And while he famously didn’t have his wings yet, it was the warm-hearted Clarence (Henry Travers) who convinced George Bailey (James Stewart) that it is, indeed, a wonderful life.
More recently, Emma Thompson played perhaps the most classically biblical portrayal in 2003’s Angels In America, a celestial being appearing through a beam of light, commanding the sick and despairing Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) to be a prophet to a broken world. Set at the time of the Aids crisis, and with the world on the cusp of a new millennium, writer Tony Kushner drew on our perception of angels in order to confront the collective grief of that era.
Generally speaking, however, popular portrayals of God’s messengers have become more interpretational, particularly in Hollywood films of the last thirty years. In Good Fortune, Reeves’ naïve, clumsy Gabriel is more in keeping with contemporary comedic depictions, ones that imagine these heavenly presences as being almost as flawed as humans are.
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 practicing Catholic at the time, the Clerks filmmaker gave a sincere if irreverent take on faith, embodied by the performance of Alan Rickman as The Metatron, the voice of God. He’s presented as resentful, tired, and disdainful of humans, referring to them as “bottom feeders”. He tells tales about the trial and error of Creation, such as going through “five Adams” before realising humans couldn’t comprehend the voice of The Almighty (Alanis Morrissette).
The acid wit aside, however, there is an understanding that God’s chosen people are still, well, people. When lead Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) learns she is a descendent of Jesus, she breaks down and calls the responsibility “too big”. The Metatron sympathises with her, recalling the pleadings of a young Jesus as he learns of his place in the world. Compassion, and an acknowledgement that life is imperfect both above and below, is a radical departure from what may be expected.
Another alternative take on the angel is John Travolta in 1996’s Michael. Playing an Archangel with a hint 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 chaotic road trip, the easy-going Seraphim tries to teach them that the world can be mended through “small miracles”, 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 “have a little fun” while he’s here.