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Is Keanu Reeves’ screen presence otherworldly, or simply wooden? In Aziz Ansari’s comedy Good Fortune it’s both, in an oddly endearing way. Reeves dons wings — not majestic ones, just a forlorn pair of stubby pinions — as Gabriel, a guardian angel assigned to save Los Angeles residents who risk death texting while driving. Aspiring to greater things, he intervenes in the life of Arj (Ansari), a would-be filmmaker languishing in the gig economy, a pawn to capricious apps.

He envies the pampered existence of tech investor Jeff (Seth Rogen), so Gabriel swaps their lives to show Arj how unfulfilling luxury and leisure would be. Unsurprisingly, a very fulfilled Arj refuses to swap back. Demoted from angelhood, Gabriel becomes human and discovers wage-slave drudgery, but also the joy of tacos.

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Written and directed by stand-up and TV star Ansari (Master of None), Good Fortune draws knowingly on cinema’s legacy of angel fantasies, not least Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desirewith Gabriel’s glum mackintosh standing in for that film’s moody Berlin overcoats. Ansari’s direction makes for a no-fuss affair that might feel just functional if it didn’t have such spirit — the spirit being very much that of 1930s-’40s screwball comedies (My Man Godfrey, Sullivan’s Travels) that addressed real social issues with the lightest, crispest touch. This succinct, focused number is also sharply political in its satire of today’s working woes and the merciless logic of contemporary employment (Keke Palmer is the struggling unioniser whom Arj falls for).

Rogen, currently riding high with his series The Studio and Platonicmakes the most of his patented bro bluster, while Ansari — with his nasal tone and sarky delivery — is endearingly borderline-obnoxious. As for their co-star, he’s somewhat stiff, faintly childlike, and altogether game in playing up to everyone’s fond idea of what Keanu Reeves would be like as an angel. Celestial entities don’t usually come so affably droll.

★★★★☆

In UK and US cinemas from October 17