A character in “Ballad of a Small Player” tells a story about a gambler who dies and discovers that in the afterlife he is still gambling, but now he always wins. “This heaven?” he asks in amazement. “No,” he is told. “You’re in hell.”

The import of the story may be lost on the person it is told to, but it is not lost on the audience, who will understand that it is the story we are watching. Not because he is a winner, but because winning or losing, the gambling compulsion is its own hell.

In this film, the part of hell is played by Macao, the real-life gambling capital of the world, gorgeously photographed by James Friend. It looks like gambling may feel to someone who cannot give it up; thrilling, glamorous but also seedy, seductive, and dangerous.

The character who calls himself Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell) is a gambler. He wakes up in a luxurious hotel room littered with the clutter of a dozen different room service meals. He shaves and dresses in a handsome and expensive-looking green velvet suit, and fails to duck the hotel management that would like him to pay up on the $350,000 he owes them. A bellman explains he can no longer get access to the hotel limos, but whispers the name Rainbow, a casino that gives credit.

The big money game is Baccarat, and Doyle tells us millions can be won and lost in a single hand. The hostess/purveyor of credit is Dao Ming (Fala Chen). Later, after a gambler commits suicide by leaping out of a window, his widow accuses Dao Ming of causing her husband’s death and Doyle protects her. Dao Ming brings him back to her apartment. The next morning, he wakes to find her gone, but she has written a number on his palm.

The pressure on Doyle intensifies when he is tracked down by an investigator from London (Tilda Swinton), seeking repayment of money he stole when he was still called by his original name, Riley. If he does not pay back almost a million pounds, she will have him arrested.

Elements of the film tell us it may be a dream, a fantasy, or a deathbed hallucination. Or perhaps it is hell, with Doyle/Riley stuck in some kind of loop of big risks and bad decisions.

Parents should know that this film includes suicides, strong language, drinking, smoking, drug use, and criminal behavior.

Family discussion: How are Riley and Dao Ming alike and how are they different? What part of this film is a dream or fantasy?

If you like this, try: “Hard Eight” and “Molly’s Game”

If you could trade places with someone, who would it be? Going back to Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper (this is the best movie version), the idea of switching lives with someone who seems to have a more comfortable, secure, happier existence has been an appealing fantasy. The stories usually end with the discovery that the original life was better, harking back to the old Indian aphorism that you should never judge someone until you have walked in his moccasins. We’ve seen that play out in Hallmark movies (the “Princess Switch” trilogy and “Switched for Christmas”), with focus on family in “Freaky Friday” and all of its many remakes and variations, and, sometimes with more commentary on class and economic issues, as in “Trading Places.”

Aziz Ansari’s “Good Fortune” draws from all of the above with a smart, fresh, and funny take on the switched lives fantasy that has some punch in its depiction of the gig economy, the people who struggle with it and the people who profit from it.

Keanu Reeves is well cast as an angel named Gabriel, first seen in a nod to Wim Wnders’ “Wings of Desire” as he stands on top of a skyscraper, gazing down at humanity with a serious but patient and benign expression.

While other angels are responsible for big, life-changing, highly satisfying tasks, like showing a despondent man the value of his life (Stephen McKinley Henderson as Azrael), Gabriel is relegated to “texting while driving” duty. All he does is ride invisibly in the back seat of cars and touch the shoulder of the texting drivers to remind them to pay attention. He may be saving their lives but he is not involved in their lives. He complains to his supervisor, Martha (Sandra Oh) that he wants to save lost souls, but she tells him that is a complicated and demanding task and he, with the small wings of a trainee, is not ready.

Writer-director Ansari plays Arj, living in his car as he tries to stay afloat with an assortment of gig jobs, assembling furniture, waiting in line, delivering food. He lies to his father about having a new apartment as his father tells him about the success of his cousin Nuveen who works for Microsoft.

A wealthy venture capitalist named Jeff (Seth Rogen) hires Arj to clean up his garage. Arj offers to stay on as his assistant, and Jeff agrees to a one-week trial. It goes very well at first but when something goes wrong, Jeff fires Arj.

Gabriel, who has been watching Arj, decides that he has found a lost soul. And he decides that the way to make Arj appreciate all he has to live for is to switch him with Jeff. Martha asks what Gabriel is doing, and he says, “I tried to show him that wealth wouldn’t solve all his problems. It seems to have solved most of his problems.” Arj is having the time of his live in Jeff’s fabulous house and also enjoying Jeff’s having to learn what it’s like at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy.

We get to enjoy our own wish fulfillment on both counts, and the movie is packed with jokes that are shrewd as well as hilarious, with specifics about the details on both sides. Ansari’s range as an actor is limited but he mitigates that by writing around those limits. Rogen keeps getting better and Reeves is well cast, especially when Martha takes his wings and makes him a human, so he gets to try human pleasures like burgers, milkshakes, “chicken buggies,” and dancing for the first time. Reeves can have a blank quality that works very well in roles like John Wick, Neo, and Ted Logan. Here, though looking gaunt with his beard and long hair, it helps convey Gabriel’s innocence. The three of them have excellent chemistry. And there is the always-wonderful Keke Palmer, bringing endless warmth, grace, and good humor to give life to an underwritten role as a big-hearted co-worker who wants to organize a union and becomes Arj’s love interest.

This movie reminded me of Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You,” a devastating look at the corrosive, dehumanizing, exploitive impact of the gig economy, with its faux “you’ll be our partner, not an employee” bait and switch. This film has the same impact, taking on the small indignities, dispiriting invisibility, and shattering hopelessness of the working poor with the same specificity in a highly comic fantasy/comedy. Ansari wants to make us laugh because he likes being funny, but he also wants to make us laugh because he knows that is how unsettling realities bypass our defenses.

Parents should know that this film has very strong language, smoking, drinking, and drugs.

Family discussion: What did Arj learn from living Jeff’s life? Who would you like to trade places with? What should qualify an angel for a higher-level responsibility?

If you like this, try: “Here Comes Mr. Jordan”

Grow is that rare theatrical release that is a genuine treat for the family, filled with charm and lightly dusted with whimsy.

Charlie (Priya-Rose Brookwell) lives in an English orphanage she is determined to leave so she can try to find her mother, who left her behind so she could go to Los Angeles to try to become a movie star. When the head of the orphanage, exhausted by chasing after Charlie, tracks down a relative, she is relieved to be able to hand her off.

That relative is Charlie’s Aunt Dinah Little (Golda Rosheuvel of “Bridgerton” and “Queen Charlotte”), who is struggling to keep the family farm going. She is resolved but grim about taking on another responsibility.

Dinah’s farm is in a (fictional) rural community that is obsessed with pumpkins. The annual pumpkin competition is so essential to the town’s identity that there is a permanent count-down sign showing how many days to the next festival, and a gigantic annual prize of 100,000 pounds.

A snooty titled couple called Lord and Lady Smythe-Gherkin (Tim McInnerny of “Notting Hill” and Jane Horrocks of “Little Voice” and “Chicken Run”) have won every year except once, when their pumpkin was broken, and that year the prize was taken by a local farmer named Arlo (Nick Frost, often seen with Simon Pegg in movies like “Paul,” “Shawn of the Dead,” and “Hot Fuzz”).

Charlie has a gift for communicating with plants. When Dinah discovers that Charlie can “hear” what plants need to thrive, she realizes that they have a chance to beat the Smythe-Gherkins. She also begins to think that going organic might be a way to save the farm.

Someone else is determined to win the competition, a scientist named Mr. Gregory (Jeremy Swift of “Ted Lasso”), who will lose his job if he cannot prove that his system is superior. Gregory also has a son who becomes Charlie’s friend.

Director John McPhail loves to transcend genres, and this film weaves seamlessly between elements of comedy, fantasy, family drama, and even a touch of (light) horror. The winning performances lend warmth throughout that is endearing, especially the evolving relationship between Dinah and Charlie, from duty to partnership, to family. This is a touching, funny, smart, heartfelt film that should be a family favorite.

Parents should know that this film includes parental abandonment and neglect, brief schoolyard language, and some potty humor.

Family discussion: Have you ever tried to plant something? How did Dinah change and why?

If you like this, try; “Hoot” and “Dolphin Tale”

The latest in the series about sentient characters in a digital world follows in the tradition of its two predecessors: the creativity is in the visuals, with very little in the storyline, and almost none in the characters and dialogue. The visuals are excellent, though, so if you see it, make sure to see it in IMAX.

The original “TRON” (1983) was inspired by the video games that were captivating a new generation (indeed, the video game it inspired out-grossed the film). Like its sequel, “TRON: Legacy” (2010), it took place mostly in a digital world. This movie, reflecting the cultural impact of the technologies that move much faster than we can comprehend or control them, shows us the wall between “real” and virtual is dissolving.

It begins with glimpses of various news broadcasts reporting on the developments at two huge software companies. One is ENCOM, where Jeff Bridges’ character Kevin Flynn worked in the earlier films. It was then led by the benign, public-spirited Kim sisters, who wanted to use technology to feed people, cure diseases, and “uplift humanity.” The other is Dillinger Systems, recently taken over by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), grandson of the founder (the bad guy in the original film). Julian wants to use technology to create weapons, including AI soldiers who are vastly more capable than any human, and, this is a key value proposition, “100 percent expendable.” The enemy “kills” one? We’ll sell you more! And why not make these soldiers not just humanoid, but gorgeous humanoids? Thus, the sample AI-soldiers look just like Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Ares, played by Jared Leto, who says that the original film transfixed him when it first came out, and is a producer of this film

There’s just one problem that Julian manages to keep from the world leaders at his demo. The soldiers collapse into ash-like piles of code after just 29 minutes. If he is going to conquer the world, he needs to find the “permanence” code he suspects ENCOM has discovered. His mother, Elisabeth (a wasted Gillian Anderson) tries to warn him that he is being reckless, but he will not listen.

Meanwhile, Eve Kim (Greta Lee) is in fact discovering that code with the help of her assistant, Seth (Arturo Castro), on floppy disks left in a remote outpost by her late sister. Julian sends Ares and Athena to steal the code as characters — and code — go back and forth between the digital and analog worlds.

The visuals from production designer Darren Gilford) are dazzling, especially the motorcycles, ultra-modern and OG, the visualization of the cyber-heist, the action conflicts, the ribbons of light and a very cool winged flying contraption, though another flying thing that looks like something between goal posts on a football field and the Arc du Triomphe seems more dramatic than aerodynamic. The sound design is excellent, thanks to supervising sound editor Baard H. Ingebretsen and the whole sound department. The score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is also first-rate, as we expect from the impressively versatile Oscar winners.

It is frustrating to see this movie almost approach some of the real and fascinating questions of AI and then swerve away for yet another “Pinocchio” story about what makes a real boy, much more thoughtfully and provocatively explored in films like “Blade Runner,” and, in a way, by every movie because they are all about what makes us most human: love, compassion, curiosity, humor, the quest for making things better. I was much less interested in whether Ares would develop feelings beyond vocabulary than I am in what we do about characters like Julian, who are unconstrained by norms, or concern for anyone but himself. The script equivalent of the 29 minute AI soldier collapse is giving Julian and his mother less depth than an 8 bit NPC. Eve, Seth, and Ajay (Hasan Minhaj) are not much better, and it is truly a shame to see this exceptional performers given so little to work with. I mean, Tilly Norwood could have handled this just as well, which is a reflection on her limitations, not her capacity.

That includes dialogue like “Maybe there is something wrong with me.” “Maybe there is something right with you.”

I did laugh at Ares’ appreciation for Depeche Mode. This is an entity made from data who has absorbed every bit and byte of information since the world began including all of Eve’s text messages, and what Ares likes is the ineffable pull of 80s British synth-pop? (He manages a kind word for Mozart.)

Jeff Bridges does show up in beatifically magisterial and most welcome mode, playing a Wizard of Oz-like figure (Julian’s interface is strongly reminiscent of the fake Oz in the MGM version), reminding us that there are some things AI cannot match. So far.

Parents should know that this movie includes extended fantasy/sci-fi peril and action with some violence and two sad deaths of family members. There is brief strong language.

Family discussion: Who should monitor and control AI? If you went into the digital world, what would you do? Why did Ares say once was enough?

If you like this, try: the other “Tron” movies and the “Blade Runner” films

Marc Maron is not going to live happily ever after. As we saw recently in the documentary “Anxiety Club,” about the connection between stand-up comedy and anxiety, Maron would not feel like himself if he was happy. He is not quite sure why other people are happy, or want to be. Not being happy has worked out well for him. In its own way, that may be his kind of happiness. What he says is, “I’m clearly dealing with grief and sadness by overcompensating with anger and funny.” And that gives him some sense of satisfaction.

“Are We Good?” is a documentary about Maron as he is in a transitional moment. He is still mourning the loss of the person he loved most, the one who made him feel the most seen and safe. That was writer/director Lynn Shelton, and the archival footage of them together is heart-wrenchingly moving, her radiant pleasure in his presence, and a glimpse of him as, yes, happy, somewhere under the defaults of the perpetual dissatisfactions that underly observational humor. If you have not seen Shelton’s “Sword of Trust” movie seek it out. The storyline gets loopy, but Maron is superb and so, in a brief appearance as Maron’s character’s ex, is Shelton.

Maron tells us he always wanted to do comedy, and we see clips from him in the early years. with long hair, a period where he tells us he was smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. David Cross says he was one of the few who liked Maron in those days.

He “didn’t draw” back then, meaning that he could get on TV talk shows but it did not translate to success in clubs. And so, with no particular goal in mind, he set up a recording “studio” in his garage and began the podcast that if he had any hopes of making commercially successful he would probably not have called WTF.

His timing may have been accidental, but it was perfect. And the kind of close observation that underlay his comedy made him an attentive, perceptive, insightful, and empathetic interviewer. Everyone anyone might want to hear came to his garage, comedians like Robin Williams, writers and directors and producers like Lorne Michaels, Quentin Tarrantino, Mel Brooks, and Mike Judge, musicians and singers like Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, and Mavis Staples, actors like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, and national figures like Barack Obama. And, of course, Lynn Shelton, before they were a couple, and you can feel the spark between them as they discover it in each other.

In the documentary, Maron appears before an audience with a pad of paper on his lap. They and we can see him creating on the spot, not just jokes, not just his set, but as he admits, even his persona. He is still grieving the loss of Lynn Shelton, and he is also, in the movie’s most touching scenes, dealing with his father’s dementia. He is also coping with the end of WTF. He has spent more time as an actor (recently in the AppleTV+ series “Stick”), though says he is always inclined to turn down offers.

The film will be of most interest to Maron fans, though even fans may prefer his comedy specials and acting appearances. But seeing someone whose inclination is to maintain distance between his thoughts and feelings grapple with loss shows us what even comedy cannot.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language and references to drinking, smoking, drug use, a parent with dementia, and a sad death.

Family discussion: How can comedy help to process grief? How does what Marc Maron observes around him show up in his act?

If you like this, try: “Anxiety Club,” “Stick,” “WTF,” and Maron’s comedy specials