The buzz I’ve been hearing on The International is pretty bad (The Bored Supremacy is a joke I’ve heard bandied about amongst my colleagues who got invited to see the movie), but director Tom Tykwer isn’t letting that stop him from planning his next move. Last week we heard that he might be doing an adaptation of David Mitchell’s The Cloud Atlas, but now he reveals to Film School Rejects that his next film might actually be an adaptation of Dave Eggers’ What Is The What.
The book is a fictionalized telling of the true story of Valentino Achek Deng, a Sudanese Lost Boy. Deng is a young boy during the Second Sudanese Civil War and, when his village is wiped out by the Arab Murahaleen militia he becomes a refugee. Deng travels thousands of miles on foot, experiences incredible hardships and terror and finally comes to America where he discovers that some of his problems are only beginning. Eggers tells the story as Deng’s autobiography, remarkably capturing the voice of this man. The book is beautiful and scary and sad and will make you incredibly angry.
If Tykwer can capture any of that, his film will be remarkable. I’ve been waiting to see this book adapted – it’s begging for a movie version – but I am slightly concerned that Tykwer doesn’t have the Danny Boyle touch, the ability to merge his heightened Run Lola Run/Perfume sensibilities with a true humanity.