Jokes with a small mouth

Aziz Ansari is still finding himself. After the 2018 lawsuit for a strange episode of inappropriate sexual conduct that left him semi-canceled, he has not quite found the tone to express himself. His 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 out-of-tune 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 walks on eggshells and confuses white humor with insubstantial humor.

Heavenly Shift is a feel-good little joke about two classic narrative devices: the role reversal (like The Prince and the Pauper) and the angel who comes down to Earth to help a disoriented human being (like It's a Wonderful Life). In this case, Keanu Reeves is a clumsy seraph who swaps the lives of a bumbling but endearing concert promoter (Aziz Ansari) and an insufferable venture capitalist (Seth Rogen). If all of this is a strategy to reveal the injustices of the capitalist system that widens the social gap more each day, the denunciation is voiced so softly 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.