Jokes with a small mouth

Aziz Ansari is still finding himself. After the 2018 accusation for a strange episode of inappropriate sexual conduct that left him semi-canceled, he hasn't quite found his voice. The 2019 Netflix stand-up special, the third installment of the 2019 Netflix special, the third installment of Master of None in 2021 and now his film directorial debut show an audiovisual creator with an intermittently off-key voice. It works best when he moves away from comedy: the last season of the series that made him famous was magnificent, but it seemed written by Ingmar Bergman. When he wants to make people laugh again, on the other hand, he treads carefully and confuses white humor with insubstantial humor.

Celestial Move is a feel-good little joke about two classic narrative devices: the role reversal (think The Prince and the Pauper) and the angel who comes down to Earth to help a disoriented human being (think It's a Wonderful Life). In this case, Keanu Reeves is a clumsy seraph who swaps the lives of a sloppy but endearing concert promoter (Aziz Ansari) and an unbearable venture capitalist (Seth Rogen). If all this is a strategy to reveal the injustices of the capitalist system that widens the social gap every day, the denunciation is made in such a low voice that it doesn't reach the audience. And if it's a spark to ignite comic chaos, the jokes are so modest and insecure that they often don't even seem like gags.