Film Review: Tesla
Tesla, Directed by Michael Almereyda
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By Belle McIntyre.
It is noteworthy and fascinating to realize that many of the younger (under 30) generation are most likely unaware of the fact that there was a person named Nikola Tesla who never lived to see the creation of an electric car named Tesla. This has everything to do with the electricity which we all consume and take for granted. The fact that Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLaughlan) is the name most often associated with the light bulb is just one example of the difference between these pioneering inventors who brought light into our homes and cities as recently as the late 19th century. The enormity of the changes which they brought to the world with their work is an accepted part of the history of the industrial revolution. Therefore, the back story of the intense rivalry between these two driven, brilliant men is fertile territory.
Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) is a Serbian scientist who initially works for Thomas Edison who is developing direct current electricity to provide light which can be delivered to cities and homes. When Tesla leaves the employment of Edison to pursue the development of the safer and more efficient alternating current the gauntlet is thrown. The two men could not be more different. Edison is a savvy business man and self-promoter. He is charming and well-connected and adept at finding funding to produce his inventions. Tesla is introverted, socially awkward, and taciturn. He lives entirely in his head which is filled with scientific questions and solutions. He has limited communication skills and little interest in social interactions, which makes him fairly impenetrable.
This is a promising premise for a film and there are enough fascinating characters to fill in the the colorful background of the Gilded Age and the cataclysmic changes of the period. George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan) with his preposterous moustaches and JP Morgan play key roles. The fact that two amazing women are attracted to this brooding and dour solitary genius seems unbelievable. But the film would have us believe that Anna Morgan (Eve Hewson), the beautiful daughter of JP Morgan intervened on his behalf to her father for funding and that the hugely famous Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan) found him to be an object of fascination is hard to fathom given the somber depiction by Ethan Hawke who displays only a single facial expression throughout.
Overall, there is much to recommend here. Sean Price Williams cinematography of Gilded Age locations, World’s Fairs, futuristic laboratories where Tesla is harnessing lightning in the dessert are superbly crafted and atmospherically lit. And, while the film seems to take itself too seriously for most of the time, there are some sly winks of humor – like a cell phone, and the fact that Anna Morgan narrates parts of the story in voice over from the present referencing a Google search. And the ending is totally bewildering when Tesla, apropos of nothing, stands before a microphone singing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” a song by the group Tears for Fears.
