Following his embodiment of American foreign policy in Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks looks to embody American economic policy as Alan Clay, a man who once voted to move Schwinn’s bicycle production to China, and who now finds himself trying to hawk IT for an unbuilt city of the future in Saudi Arabia. The surreal opening, which features Hanks riffing on Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” while his comfortable life disappears in puffs of purple smoke, quickly gives way to a calmer, more plausible brand of surreality: an American businessman trying to do business in the desert when there is no business to be done. The wheels spin, the family falls apart, the center cannot hold. But the weird growth on the back? That can grow apace. Director Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas), who also adapted the screenplay from Dave Eggers novel, displays a fine eye and a light touch with cultural detail, and isn’t nearly as harsh on his hero as he might have (ought to have?) been. A handsome lady doctor delivers the kindly moral: “the thinnest filament separates us.” (2016) — Matthew Lickona
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