As Keanu Reeves dons feathered wings as an angel in Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, we look at how these spiritual servants have fared on screen.
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.
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.
Not every twist on the formula is comedic, as various characters have shown a modernised portrayal with more dramatic intent. No-one could describe Gabriel (Tilda Swinton) in Constantine as virtuous, being an Archangel who wishes to unleash “Hell on Earth”, but she offers an interesting take on humanity. Pinning the titled character (also played by Keanu Reeves) to the floor, she laments how mankind takes for granted God’s grace, and their unique privilege of gaining forgiveness through repentance. “I’ve been watching you for a long time”, she whispers, “it’s only in the face of horror that you find your noblest selves... So, I’ll bring you pain, I’ll bring you horror, so that you may rise above it.” It’s not the most gracious of portraits, but presents a twisted mirror to mankind that rings uncomfortably true.
Division is also at the root of Wim Wenders’ classic Wings Of Desire (1987), later loosely remade in Hollywood as the 1998 romantic drama City Of Angels. The story follows two angels overlooking Berlin in the late ‘80s, still separated by The Berlin Wall. Their task is to preserve, support, and quietly help the people around them despite never being perceived.
So far, so ethereal, until angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) becomes envious of the finite earthly experience. Despite the powers of heaven, he wishes “to guess, instead of always knowing”, to experience the rush of love, and even pain, that he can only observe from above. While a traditional angel of sorts, he breaks from tradition by seeing our short existence as a kind of heaven.
At first glance, all these portrayals of angels may seem like a mild form of blasphemy, toying with the Christian perception of The Afterlife in order to make a comment, or land a joke. However, there is something more to all of these characters, that help us understand the bigger questions in a more accessible way. Cinema has always had trouble delivering characters who are fundamentally “good” – take Superman, for example, whose struggle to be perceived as sincere in a cynical world was the very conflict at the centre of James Gunn’s latest incarnation of the character.
This superhero-style angel, sent from the heavens to protect and uplift humanity, is broken down via David Corenswet’s passionate third act speech: “I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices that I can,” he tells his nemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). In the same way, these flawed angels are a modern means of understanding the concepts of divinity, and in doing so better knowing the world around us. All these characters understand that the world is imperfect, people are damaged, but that the secret to angelic behaviour is not being flawless, but doing good despite those imperfections.
Keanu Reeves’ Gabriel joins this choir of satirical cinematic spirits embarking on his own journey, learning something of the human experience by walking, talking, and smoking among them (“it’s all I have!” he laments as he contemplates his downfall during a cigarette break). However, he echoes his predecessor’s sentiments that to live a good life comes through accepting the peaks as well as the valleys. The truest virtue comes from trying.
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