“And I feel that there’s time. There must be time.”

ZombieDog’s rating: Let your mind go and your body will follow.

ZombieDog’s review: As you get older your taste matures. Which now that I think about it, isn’t entirely correct. It’s more accurate to say that it becomes refined. What you’re looking for becomes more nuanced and subtle. Aspects of life that you would have overlooked when you were younger suddenly take on great significance. This is really what it means to get older. I mean, who I am is basically still the same: I enjoy cartoons, I like candy same as when I was young, but I also like sushi and asparagus things that would have repelled me as a kid.

The one question that I think is an absolute cruelty to ask children is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

A Hologram for the King is about a middle age-ish man on a do-or-die mission for his company to sell a new technology to the King of Saudi Arabia. He’s also a man whose life is been completely destroyed. He has just recently went through a divorce, his career is coming to an unremarkable end, he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with an aging parent, and to top it off, he has something growing on his back.

Tom Hanks plays Alan Clay as he works his way through this perspective business deal. It’s a subtle, mature film about a man trying to find his way. I would say one of the two strengths of this film is that even if you are nothing like this character, you will still understand some of his dilemmas. The other strength is that it dared to take a chance and tell a story — an adventure of the mind and soul.

The issue with this film is that I wouldn’t call it a comedy, even though there are comedic moments. I wouldn’t call it a drama even though there are dramatic moments. It’s going to show you the story in its own way, sit back and enjoy it.

Early on, Alan requests a driver, and it essentially winds up being “some guy” (Omar Elba) with a car. (I don’t know if this is accurate but, we have UBER so go figure.) There are some quips about there being a bomb in the car which don’t go over very well because of cultural differences. But it really does set the tone for the whole rest of the movie as this isn’t comparing and contrasting between Saudi Arabia and America. This movie is a very much “you do your thing, I’ll do mine.” The cultural differences and the political tensions are felt, but not to the degree you would think that they would be.

This film also breaks from the stereotypical “American in the foreign country movie” where the teaching them how to be free archetype has fallen by the wayside. And I must say “good riddance,” because being dialogue heavy and situation-driven, it feels a little bit like a ’70s film. I am okay with that. It’s not about a super genius, merely an average guy trying to make things work. To this end, he encounters everyday problems such as the “thing” growing on his back. It’s more than a thing, a giant lump. He attempts a home surgery to puncture it with a knife, which turns out to be a bad idea and causes him to wind up in the local hospital.

At the hospital Alan meets Zahra (Sarita Choudhury) — a female doctor, a rarity but not an impossibility in the country, and they discover that the lump on his back is a tumor growing dangerously close to his spine and must be removed. The interaction between him and his doctor (who later becomes a love interest) is truly representative of how Hanks’s character approaches everything in the movie. He’s extremely cautious and is desperately trying not to offend. Increasingly though, it becomes more and more obvious that this is how he has approached his whole life. Even at this point in the movie, and even given what know about this character, we understand this approach has done him no good.

I would like to point out that wherever he goes, to the hotel, restaurant, or even the hospital, we recognize these places. They’re not living in the stone age; Saudi Arabia is shown to be a modern civilization with equivalent resources to our own. The movie is aware of cultural differences, yet never really harps on them for very long. This has to be by design because it would seem as though some of the incidents deserve discussion at the very least.

For example, there are events which are glaringly obvious contradictions. Don’t forget he is there to make a sale of technology to the royal family. During this presentation, his team has been forced to live in a tent outside of the palace. No explanation is given, and we never really see the reason for doing so. I’m hesitant to even chalk this up to a cultural idea.

It turns out that doing business with the royal family can be unpredictable, as the tea is informed it may be several more weeks before it gets to see the King. Alan’s company was counting on selling this technology as it’s on the verge of bankruptcy. With little to do to change the situation, he decides to take a road trip with his Uber driver to see his family. This is where the movie feels its most natural, not only because he a man out of time, but because he is a fish out of water and is finally embracing it.

Arguably this is the best part of the movie because we get to see Alan abandon his fear-based life for at the very least the potential for hope.

We are not being shown a complicated movie, and I truly understand this film is probably not for everybody. What’s more, if you’ve never had your heart broke or your dreams destroyed I still think people get it. If you take one thing away from this movie it has to be that in complete disaster and failure it is still possible to continue on. Even more than that though, it may be possible to find the path you were always meant to be on.

“If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.” -Rudyard Kipling