Ethan Hawke's TESLA is an Interesting Way To Tell Nikola Tesla's Story - Sundance Review
I’ve always wanted to see a great movie made about Nikola Tesla. The guy was one of the greatest minds to ever live. He would have changed the world in ways that Thomas Edison never could have even dream of. Unfortunately, Tesla got the raw end of the deal and ended up dying penniless and alone.
Tesla’s life is both an inspiring and tragic story. It surprises me how many people still don’t know who he is and what he accomplished in his life, which is why he needs a great movie or series to tell his story.
I was hoping that Ethan Hawke’s new film Tesla would be that film. But, while the movie is fun and unique and offers details on Tesla’s life, it not really the film that Tesla deserves. Due to the film’s budget constraints, the director and his team had to get creative and they ended up telling Tesla’s story in an interesting way. Some things worked, while other things didn’t.
They incorporated some fun comedic moments and even implemented modern-day tech in the film. For example, as the narrator Anne Morgan (Eva Hewson), the daughter of J.P. Morgan, analyzes Tesla and his story, she uses a laptop computer and Google to help illustrate her points. It seems like an odd choice to make, but I accepted it, and for the most part, it worked.
The movie highlights many of Tesla’s accomplishments, mistakes, and failures, but it does it in a way where the pacing was off and the flow of the film was rough. There’s so much to cover in Tesla’s life and they wanted to squeeze as much as they could into it, but the way they incorporated all of that into the movie felt forced and unnatural.
I think Ethan Hawke is a great fit for Tesla. He certainly looked the part and had the intensity in his eyes, but the way he was directed didn’t really work. His accent wasn’t consistent and he spoke in such a low monotone voice, I could barely hear him. The movie also starred Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) in the role of Thomas Edison and he was great! He was one of the best parts of the movie.
The movie was enjoyable to an extent. It’s not the Tesla film I was hoping for, though. The film completely lost me near the end when Ethan Hawke as Tesla gets behind a microphone and starts singing the song “Everybody Wants to Rule The World”. I get why they did it, but it didn’t work and it just pulled me out of the film experience. It was like watching bad karaoke.
So, while I really wanted to love this film, it ended up being an okay movie with some great moments.
Here’s the synopsis for the film:
Brilliant, brooding inventor Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition. Increasingly displeased by the greed of fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), Tesla forges his own virtuous but arduous path toward creating the innovative alternate-current motor. His European nature is at odds with budding American industrialism, and the landscape of intellectual property is treacherous—and Tesla slowly becomes jailed in his overactive mind. His associate Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) analyzes and presents his story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice in this scientific period drama.
Sundance Film Festival veteran Ethan Hawke returns in this informative and engaging historical piece directed by Michael Almereyda (A Hero of Our Time, Marjorie Prime). With Tesla's controversies, legal battles, entrepreneurial clashes, and romantic interests, Almereyda weaves together a portrait of a man struggling against the interests of his time. The profundity of his electrical mind is unearthed through this rediscovery of the development of electricity in the United States, ultimately posing existential questions about invention, industry, greed, love, and lightning.
