A Hologram for the King (2016)
Directed by Tom Tykwer
Alan Clay, a struggling American businessman, travels to Saudi Arabia to sell a new technology to the King, only to be challenged by endless Middle Eastern bureaucracy, a perpetually absent monarch, and a suspicious growth on his back.
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What critics compared A Hologram for the King to
Like the Dave Eggers novel it was based on, “A Hologram for the King” calls to mind such diverse antecedents as “Death of a Salesman,” “Waiting for Godot” and “Lost in Translation.”
It’s “Lost in Translation”-level icky, but it’s quickly establishes this is no Ugly American romp.
(In this, it resembles the Sofia Coppola-Bill Murray “Lost in Translation.”)
The comedy stems from the sense of dislocation even more acute than that in Sofia Coppola’s wry comedy,“Lost in Translation,” his growing friendship with the Saudi driver, a search for alcohol in a land where such is forbidden and the surreal experience of a bacchanalian party at the Danish Embassy where he must dodge the advances of a randy expat.
Imagine “Lost in Translation” in the Middle East and you’ll get a good idea of the soul-searching that drives the meandering plot forward.