From melancholic meditation to crowd-pleasing comedy

THE death of the American Dream and the rise of globalisation are the central themes of A Hologram for the King, an entertaining if lightweight adaptation of Dave Eggers' novel - a 2012 National Book Award finalist - of the same name.

Directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, 1998) who also wrote the script, it transforms from a melancholic existential meditation on paper to a strangely familiar but nontheless crowd-pleasing satirical black comedy - about a Westerner finding himself in an exotic foreign land - on screen.

Some of that might have to do with Tom Hanks, who is blessed with the gift of magically breathing life into the most weary of characters. Both he and Tykwer have previously collaborated on Cloud Atlas (2012), which the latter co-directed with the Wachowski siblings.