Tom Tykwer is no stranger to the weird, wonderful and wordy. Having previously adapted supposedly unfilmable novels like Perfume and Cloud Atlas, the German writer-director has now repeated the trick with his take on Dave Eggers’ A Hologram For The King, which stars Tom Hanks.
Despite the somewhat esoteric source material, Tykwer feels the film will have universal appeal.
“It’s about the financial crash, but also about an isolated man who could be from any time,” he suggests. “It’s Willie Loman, but it could also be those real bankers portrayed in The Big Short.”
The latter observation is emblematic of Tykwer’s conversation style; all quick wit, philosophical musings and pop culture references.
“I think there could be a double feature of The Big Short and A Hologram For The King,” he continues. “The first film shows the financial crash, and then A Hologram For The King explores the aftermath. It’s about all the guys who felt safe in their jobs, who were in the Baby Boomer generation, and expected their cars, houses, families and bank balances to grow. Then it just stopped.
“Now they’re stuck, and they’re of a certain age where society doesn’t see them as useful. Our lead Alan is an analogue character – he grew up selling physical things, and now he has to travel to Saudi Arabia and sell a hologram to a king who isn’t there. He also has to devise a communication system for a city in the desert that isn’t built yet. He feels like an alien on his own planet, and his challenge is to reconnect and build a life for himself.”
Tykwer’s challenge was to bring the interiority of Eggers’ novel to the screen, with all its tonal quirks. A long-time fan and friend of Eggers, Tykwer was so determined to adapt the novel that he asked the author only two days after the book was published – to which the author reportedly replied, “God, can’t I just enjoy the book for a minute first?” But the director was adamant.
“I love that he’s able to write classical literature that’s still so relevant to today,” enthuses Twyker. “He has an epic storytelling sensibility. That’s what I look for when searching for material to translate into a film – a universal feeling. It has to stay warm, relevant and affecting, throughout the ages.
“I had an immediate instinct that there could be a great film here. Not just an adaptation, but a movie with its own identity and language – truthful to the intentions of the book, but finding something new in the aesthetic and the approach.”
Tom Hanks stars as fumbling salesman Alan, undergoing a personal crisis, as he negotiates the world of high-tech sales in Saudi Arabia. Having directed Hanks when he played a poisonous doctor, a roughneck actor and a futuristic goatherd in Cloud Atlas, Twyker knew the empathy and joy Hanks would bring to the set and screen.
“That’s the miracle with Tom,” notes the director. “You can put him in the most humiliating, silly moments, where other actors would be horrible to watch, but he makes it joyful or manages to move you. If he cracks a bad joke, you’re not embarrassed for him – you’re embarrassed with him. He draws you in, and you stay attached to him. And he’s so much fun to work with: he’ll try anything.”
Some Eggers fans have been critical of the adaptation, but Tykwer is an old hand at dealing with such complaints. He found himself at the centre of a national storm in Germany back in 2006, when he decided to adapt Patrick Suskind’s beloved Perfume, one of the most successful German novels of the 20th century. Namechecked by everyone from Kurt Cobain to Kate Moss, and briefly considered as a possible film project by no less than Stanley Kubrick, the 1985 book was a cultural sensation.
“Oh some people weren’t happy!” Tykwer laughs good-naturedly about the response. “But I felt an irresistible pull to that story, where the antagonist is the hero. I wanted to step into the shoes of a murderer! But there was a lot of resistance. And Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is such a masterpiece, one of the biggest books of my life, and that was really hard. Finding your own approach, which lets people keep their own vision of the book, while creating a new version – that’s the key. But no matter what movie you make, some people will always be like, ‘Ugh, no! Leave the book alone!’ And I get it – I’ll never go watch an adaptation of Proust.”
One of Tykwer’s favourite book adaptations is Lenny Abrahamson’s Oscar-nominated Room, based on the novel by Emma Donoghue.
“I thought it was stunning, amazing,” he says. “It was such a profound, humanistic movie, I was overwhelmed.”
Currently working on a new TV show, Babylon Berlin, Tykwer is already looking to the future – but like Hologram’s Alan, he’s a nostalgic creature. The director still holds a special place in his heart for his 1998 cult classic, Run Lola Run.
“We were making a small experimental film that people were shaking their heads at,” reflects Tykwer. “But we were doing something out of excitement, and fun, and love for cinema. I think that joy is woven into the fabric of the film and can be felt. That’s the way with cinema and art – it has to be authentic. You cannot manufacture magic.”
A Hologram For The King is in cinemas now.