Any
country that prohibits the consumption of alcohol is a terrible place for a
mid-life crisis. Most inconveniently, Alan Clay finds himself in the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, just as his personal life and finances reach their nadir. He has
one last chance to make a career-saving sale in Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram for the King (trailer here), which is now playing in New
York after screening as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
How did the
desperate-looking Clay get assigned the KSA account? He once cracked a joke
that made one of the dozens of Saudi princes laugh. It is not much, but his
company is looking to play any angle. They need the King to buy their
holographic tele-conferencing software or face shareholder wrath.
Unfortunately, Clay does not encounter the same sense of urgency when he
finally arrives in Jeddah.
For the
severely jet-lagged Clay, just getting to King Abdullah Economic City (KEAC)
will be a challenge. Constantly over-sleeping the shuttle, Clay must repeatedly
book Yousef as his private driver and the film’s comic relief. Once on-site, he
quickly realizes his software pitch has been back-burnered. Nothing can happen
without the King, who is constantly traveling abroad.
Clay’s
team will also need better connectivity to make their pitch but they are being
unceremoniously quartered in a stifling hot tent. The only staffer who will
talk to him in the main building is Hanne, a Danish contractor who can at least
hook him up with some contraband booze. To make matters worse, the suspicious
growth on his back seems to get worse. However, his luck might finally change
when he is examined by Dr. Zahra Hakem, one of the few women doctors in the
KSA.
Seriously,
it is hard to believe Dr. Hakem would ever treat a male westerner in a country
where women are not allowed to drive (as the film duly depicts), but it allows
a rather appealing romance to develop between the doctor and her patient. In
fact, Tykwer’s adaptation of the Dave Eggers source novel readily acknowledges
the severe theocratic regulations and the frequent public executions as a fact
of Saudi life. However, it seems to reserve its outrage, since there are
apparently work-arounds available for western expats. That is all well and fine
for booze, but being LGBT in the KSA is still a dangerous proposition.
In fact,
we get a sense of this intolerance when Clay starts his unlikely courtship of
Dr. Hakem. Evidently, they can only steal a kiss while snorkeling along the sea
floor. In terms of economic and geo-political concerns, the film clearly argues
China is a far more sinister threat to the West, which is admittedly tough to
argue with.
Tom
Hanks does his Tom Hanks thing as Clay, but in this case his everyman is a bit
more depressed and self-indicting. The halting romantic chemistry he develops
with the charismatic Sarita Choudhury is quite engaging and quite convincingly
played from a rational emotional perspective. (Again, it is hard to believe
things could ever get so far in the opened-minded KSA, but why let reality stand
in the way of a nice movie subplot?) On the other hand, Sidse Babett Knudsen
(also seen in the first-rate Courted)
is criminally under-employed as Hanne.
