A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING (2016) Review
Directed by Tom Tykwer
Based on the novel written by Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King is a weird choice for a big screen adaptation. While the story is simple and decent, there isn’t that much to get from it, no real and big complications, no thought-provoking life decisions and no dramas too complex that it would fully absorb the audiences to its story.
The film tells the story of Alan Clay, a washed-up, desperate American salesman who travels to Saudi Arabia (Hanks) to sell a holographic teleconferencing system to the Saudi government, presenting their product to the king himself, hence the title. Everything’s presented in a natural way, arriving in a foreign country, the usual difficulties and the process to adapt.
Tom Hanks as a businessman isn’t new but it is something we welcome often because, it is Tom Hanks. His performance helped the film a lot, it doesn’t get tiring to watch as everything just goes smoothly, nothing more, nothing less. The story isn’t bad, it’s decent but you won’t get to be interested in it as a whole but there’s something in the film that breathes life, anticlimactic but natural.
I guess that’s how the story worked, and it is based from a novel, so diverting from the source material might not be the best interest for most of the people involved in the film. That’s the main reason they wanted to adapt it after all.
A Hologram for the King won’t always entertain you, and it doesn’t try to be something it’s not. It’s life as it is, not going far from the essence of life might not be the traditional way to present a film but it’s honesty in showing life as it is is something we hardly see nowadays.
2.5 OUT OF 5 STARS
“A Hologram For The King” is now showing in Philippine cinemas from Octoarts Films International. Rated R-13 by the MTRCB.