A Hologram For the King (2016): No There There

I recently saw A Hologram For the King based on the Dave Eggers novel. Directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), it's somewhat interesting and amusing, but not very compelling and but a mediocre attempt at capturing the essence of the book. As such, I was not initially inclined to write about it, but after reading a few surprisingly favorable reviews, I have decided to weigh in.

The movie stars Tom Hanks, as Alan Clay, an American businessman/salesman who has experienced a series of late life (he is in his fifties) reversals – divorce, loss of job, loss of home and savings, inability to pay daughter’s college tuition, etc.  Much of this is revealed to us in an amusing introductory segment set to the lyric of The Talking Heads song Once In A Lifetime (“That is not my beautiful house”, as house vanishes; “This is not my beautiful wife”, as wife disappears, etc). For me, anyway, this rather tongue in cheek intro, treating Alan’s misfortune as a kind of joke, undercuts the dramatic situation Alan is in, and made it more difficult for me to take his predicament – and thus the movie - very seriously.

In any event, as the picture gets underway, Alan has been handed a chance to redeem some self esteem and good fortune. He is in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or KSA (“You may ask yourself, How did I get here?”) hoping to close a business deal with the King on behalf of an American IT company. The king plans to build a brand new city in the desert, albeit on the red Sea (King Abdullah Economic City or KAEC), and Alan’s task, aided by a team of young techies, is to sell a state of the art holographic conferencing system for use there. However, the improbable (but true) KAEC project, literally located in the middle of nowhere, seems to be stalled, and so are Alan’s efforts to set up a meeting with the king or his representatives. Day after day the promised meeting is postponed. Day after day, Alan commutes from his luxury hotel in Jedda out to the depressing site - a few solitary buildings, most of which are unfinished, amidst the sand dunes - only to be told nothing will happen today. Meanwhile, his team is stuck in a big tent in the desert with no amenities.

It’s a very Becket-like situation. Alan has the optimism of the true salesman however, and keeps hoping and plugging away, and hoping some more. He may be a modern day Willie Loman, but if such a thought ever crossed his mind, he doesn’t acknowledge it.  Nor does director Tykwer, who consistently emphasizes the comic and the ironic elements of the situation; and in this he deviates mightily from Eggers novel, even as he incorporates many of its plot details. Eggers’ book had a lot to say about the outsourcing of American jobs to China and elsewhere, the decline of American employment opportunities, and what he saw as the resulting loss of America’s spirit. Alan, in fact, is meant to be emblematic of these events – in his former job as an executive at Schwinn, he took part in the decision to close its US bicycle factory and move all manufacturing to China, a decision which not only resulted in the loss of hundreds of US jobs, but ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the company and Alan’s unemployment.

Throughout much of the novel, Alan’s mood is one of quiet desperation, an existential angst. On some level he blames himself, but more disquieting is his doleful recognition that the American dream may have failed.  The movie alludes to a few of the events in Alan’s life which gave rise to these feelings (via a few flashbacks). But it makes little effort to portray his dour state of mind nor to incorporate Eggers’ concerns about the the exporting of American jobs or the downturn in the American psyche.  The point of the book or any meaning at all is largely lost in the pursuit of smiles, and eventually in a far from credible romance.  

Movies aren’t books, and it’s dangerous to compare a film to its source novel. A film should be judged on its own, as cinema. My point, however, is that Eggers’ book was a serious work with some thought provoking contemporary themes. Tykwer’s movie is a light entertainment with few ideas.

 So instead we get a bit of a buddy movie about Alan’s relationship with his amusing, insouciant driver Yousef (Alexander Black) - who somehow reminded me of Alex, the similarly diverting Ukrainian translator in Jonathan Safran Froer’s Everything Is Illuminated. Yousef is a lovely character: cynical, a devotee of heavy metal music, and paranoid about reprisals from the influential husband of his married lover. As comic relief in this story, he’s a far cry from our expectation of a typical Saudi Arab.

And we get a bit of unlikely romance, as toward the end of the picture Alan gets cozy with his female Arab physician. (I know, here’s another character who does not meet our expectations about KSA culture.) Her name is Zahra, played by Sarita Choudhari (Homeland). The developing relationship between Alan and Zahra is sweet, adorable even, but not very enlightening – other than to illustrate that Alan is lonely (and Zahra, too, apparently).

I generally like Tom Hanks and consider him one of our finest actors. He was more than fine in Hologram.  As his character is afflicted with an undue share of setbacks and maladies, he reacts beautifully, with a seemingly endless variety of different looks: chagrin, resignation, frustration, hope, determination. Hanks even manages to capture a bit of the novel’s melancholy, notwithstanding a screenplay and directorial style which consistently aims for wry levity.

I think Tykwer was trying to have it both ways – to honor Eggers novel and to tell a story that goes down light and easy. He wound up with a mishmash - a story that meanders and feels incomplete, without a point of view, a merely pleasant film that lacks credibility as a drama and is pretty lightweight for a comedy.

To be fair, I should add that the photography is quite beautiful in parts, and A Hologram for the King is pretty to watch.

My advice: save your ducats, and if you want to see the cinematography or catch some nice performances by Hanks, et al, wait for the DVD.

98 minutes.

In wide release.