Tom Tykwer’s new film begins rapidly: while the Talking Head’s “Once in a Lifetime” is playing we see Tom Hank as Alan Clay, a former marketing head of a bicycle company, in a psychedelic, poppy suburb as he watches everything he has vanish into thin air: his house, wife, car, etc. He finds himself on a plane on his way to Saudi Arabia, where he is tasked to sell the king a new hologram chat system. It’s his last chance to finance his nice daughters tuition and free her from having to waitress. He meets a young Arab hippie driver, an annoying and nice guy who likes listening to 70s rock and is being followed by assassins.
The film gets bogged down a bit after that. It’s not as bad as Alan Clay’s presentation, but the desert sand does manage to grate on Tykwer’s screenplay and there is a dissonance between Dave Egger’s (“The Circle”) more laid-back and private storytelling and Tykwer’s penchant for monumental imagery. You can see it work better in Tykwer/Wachowski sister’s show SENSE8 than here. Tom Hanks tries to be a grump a bit too much and so his success with the women around him is a tad hard to believe. Nevertheless: Alexander Black as Youssef the charming driver brings some momentum and Tykwer’s images of magnificent buildings in the desert are as absurd as they are impressive.

Translation: Elinor Lewy