Michael Almereyda (director)
(studio)
12 (certificate)
103 (length)
21 September 2020 (released)
20 September 2020
Nikola Tesla was the genius who rivalled Thomas Edison after he left his employment to pursue his own ambitions with physics and electricity with George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan). Although more altruistically minded than Edison (played by Kyle MacLachlan) with his inventions, he still pursued patents and the financial rewards. Just never being as business savvy or ruthless as his competitor Tesla ended up virtually dying virtually penniless. That is one of the strands of this intriguing biopic from writer/director Michael Almereyda.
The film is pretty much linear narrated by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewsen) breaking the fourth wall and telling us - incongruously from a laptop - about Tesla’s Google search returns and the few photographs there are of him. As well as leading the audience up blind alleys as she relates meetings that didn’t happen or not in the way initially described. It’s an interesting device and added to the use of obvious matt painting and special effects lends the film a magical air which is appropriate for a man of Tesla’s vast speculative imagination.
This cinematic indulgence could be that for all his genius - and they don’t skimp on the science and physics in the film -Tesla (Ethan Hawke) is not that interesting a personality or so this film portrays. He’s sluggish of voice and has a haunted appearance for the entire length of the film.
But he had his attractions in particular to Anne Morgan who was the daughter of J P Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz) the banker and financier and one of the richest men in the world.
However much as Tesla likes her company, he has no real emotional attachment to her. While Anne, even acting as a hard-nosed representative for her father when dealing with Tesla and his financial requirements, is clearly taken by him, if maybe not in love. It’s a curious relationship that skitters through the film as Tesla develops his inventions.
There are flights of fancy as Tesla sings ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, the Tears for Fear hit for no real reason though not as odd on screen as it reads. Its a technically successful film that ultimately doesn’t generate enough emotional engagement for the audience to go beyond admiration of the characters and their genius to actually care very much about any of them.
Tesla is available on Digital Download from 21 September.