A largely faithful film adaptation of Dave Eggers 2012 novel,
director Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas, Run
Lola Run) gives us a film version of A
Hologram for the King that is an excellent example of how a few minor
tweaks can change the tone of an entire piece. In both book and film the story
is told from the point of view of Alan Clay, who is struggling against ongoing
and devastating economic change. This is economic change that Alan himself
helped set in motion years before by deciding to move the Schwinn manufacturing
facility to China. Now, like so many products, Schwinn bicycles are being made
in China for less, and Alan, who is working as a consultant out of his home,
finds himself just short of unemployed and deeply in debt. He’s also trying to
cope with his failed marriage; the conflict with his ex-wife plays out in angry
discussions regarding his inability to pay his daughter’s college tuition. He
has put his house on the market, but it won’t sell. His only hope lies in selling
a holographic teleconference system to the wealthy Saudi monarch, King Abdullah.
If he can seal the deal, all his problems will be solved — with the possible
exception of a strange lump near his spine that may or may not represent
everything that is wrong in his life.
The book focuses on the isolation and evident helplessness
of Alan Clay, whose despair is only barely kept in check by a hope born of
desperation — desperation that he will be able to pay off his creditors and
make a financial recovery certainly, but also an even greater desperation not
to fail his daughter, Kit. Were this to happen, Alan fears Kit will write him
off as a failure in the same way she has written off her arguably psychotic
mother. The novel’s somewhat ambiguous ending suggests that life will continue
to hand unfortunate outcomes to Alan, who never really succeeds in getting back
his mojo as either a salesman or a human being. His continued hope in the face
of despair seems truly pitiful.
In contrast, Tykwer’s film offers a decidedly different take
on Alan and his situation. We are introduced to Alan (Tom Hanks) via a music
video-like montage set to the Talking Heads’ song “Once in a Lifetime,” and
from almost the first frame, our impression of him is not so much that of a man
in despair as a man frustrated to the point of smoldering anger by his
circumstances. As the story gets going, this impression gains strength as Alan’s
initial reaction to those around him is either barely repressed hostility or complete
cynicism. In the course of the movie, his attitude undergoes a subtle change, however,
the result of certain unanticipated interactions with people he meets during day
after day of interminable waiting for the king and his representative, both of whom
seem to be always somewhere else. In marked contrast to the book, by film’s
end, Alan has become someone for whom hope is no longer a hollow (holo?) thing.
Two characters deserve special mention. These are Yousef the
driver (Alexander Black) and Alan’s doctor, Zahra Hakem (Sarita Choudhury). Tykwer’s
screenplay rearranges and compresses the action of the book into a much tighter
storyline, with the happy result that Black and Choudhury’s characters are
given greater emphasis and the opportunity to fully develop their roles. Black
plays Yousef with an apparently ingenuous but subtly sardonic humor that is
delightful, while Choudhury’s performance transforms Zahra into a strong,
complex female character of tremendous strength and dignity — as a character,
she sits head and shoulders above the somewhat two-dimensional original in the
novel. Both actors have excellent chemistry with Tom Hanks, who also turns in a
strong performance. Dialogue in the film is taken verbatim from the novel, but
all three actors imbue it with layers of meaning the book seems to lack.
Ultimately, while some of the devices used to advance the plot and the film’s
conclusion prove predictable, outstanding performances make Tykwer’s most recent
film worth the watch.
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