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In school, we all learned about Thomas Edison—about his brilliant, life-changing inventions. But it wasn’t until recently that we started to hear more about another brilliant inventor of the time, Nikola Tesla. And the unconventional biopic Tesla sets out to bring some of the inventor’s story to life.
Tesla stars Ethan Hawke as the brilliant Serbian inventor, whose ideas brought him to work for Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) at his Machine Works in New York City in 1884. After leaving his job with Edison, who believed that Tesla’s ideas of alternating current electricity were too dangerous, he finds himself working through various partnerships and hardships on his way to turn his visions into reality. But while his rival, Edison, is a hustler and a showman, Tesla remains too caught up in his own thoughts to connect with the people around him.
Narrated by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), the daughter of J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz)—and, according to the film, the one woman who truly and unrequitedly cared for Tesla—this film is definitely an unexpected one. It’s a bizarre mix of modern and historical and theatrical, with backdrops designed to make the film look like a low-budget stage production and scenes with Anne Morgan discussing the characters’ Google search results. At times, it exaggerates scenes to make exchanges seem more exciting than they most likely were—like Tesla quitting his job for Edison while jabbing at him with an ice cream cone—but the result is just plain perplexing.
Despite its quirkiness, though, the film struggles to make Tesla a captivating figure. It’s a whole lot of details and history and snippets of conversations and encounters—none of which seem to explain the whole story. It’s a lot of science and engineering, all revolving around this one quiet, thoughtful character who doesn’t really do much—and, when he does, he seems incredibly uncomfortable. Tesla is either rambling about his inventions and ideas or quietly thinking, planning, drawing schematics in his head. And though the character and his work and his inventions are certainly fascinating, it’s definitely not easy to connect to this man who seems to have spent his life so disconnected from everyone else.
Nikola Tesla is definitely a fascinating figure—one whose story deserves to be heard. But Tesla isn’t exactly a mainstream film—nor is it even a concrete, cohesive biopic. There’s an interesting story here—told in a decidedly eccentric style—but it won’t leave you feeling like you’ve learned much about this noteworthy inventor.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
