Tesla: O Homem Elétrico

Title says it all. This was a movie that didn't need to be made, so they "re-imagined" history to make it more compelling. Only it wasn't more compelling, it simply was irritating.

I looked forward to learning a little about Nikola Tesla, the inventor moved into the shadows of people like Edison and Westinghouse by history. Instead, I got a pretentious muddle of history and fantasy given in an underlit and murky tableau that's as dull as the narrative.

Ethan Hawke plays Tesla (sans accent) as if sleepwalking. But it doesn'r matter because the story has nothing to tell us anyway. We get disjointed scenes that depict this and that, some historical and some made up. They add up to not much of anything. The "device" of throwing in anachronistic touches (Google, cell phone, Coca Cola, etc) backfire. But the major atrocity is when Hawke's Tesla picks up a microphone and starts a karaoke session of "Everybody Wants to Rule the Word."

Avoid this garbage and spend your time reading the Wikipedia article on Tesla.

This biopic was one of my most anticipated of 2020. Sadly, it is as dull as a Wikipedia entry... sprinkled with two scenes of anachronistic music and a secondary character reciting Google search statistics. Yes, you read that correctly. Ethan Hawke is as reliable as they come... but even his talents are insufficient in bringing this dead script to life. No Spark Whatsoever.

Did Elon Musk mess up by naming his car brand Tesla? The cars run on batteries, i.e. Direct Current, so maybe he should have chosen the name Edison, the champion of Direct Current?

There have been a number of movies and documentaries regarding Tesla, before this movie came out I watched a nice documentary "American Experience: Tesla (2016)" a few months ago on a DVD from my public library. Famously Edison was pushing hard in the late 1800s for widespread use of direct current, Tesla came along and, after working for Edison for a short time, partnered with Westinghouse to develop alternating current. And, as we are prone to say, "The rest is history." What a different place our world would be had Tesla not come along.

This movie, starring Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla, is more for entertainment than education, is filled with whimsy and anachronisms. Like seeing workers vacuum a hotel floor long before vacuum cleaners were invented. They also have certain scenes that never really happened, like a meeting between Edison and Tesla where they agreed to put differences aside and work together, Edison admitting he was wrong. But each time they are quick to say that never actually happened. Sort of a "what if...".

I can understand why some rate this movie very low as they probably preferred something closer to a genuine documentary. But I enjoyed it, the very low ratings of "1" or "2" are bogus, it is a much better movie than that.

I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped, not her kind of subject. But I am a scientist, I relish this type of movie and don't require that it be 100% accurate.

Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) works for Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan). He quits accusing Edison of owing him $50k. J.P. Morgan's daughter Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) is the movie's narrator who is taken with him and his work. He does a business deal with George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan) and foolishly rips up their contract for Westinghouse's sake. He falls for actress Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan) who is equally fascinated with him.

This is an arthouse bio of legendary inventor Nikola Tesla. Hawke is trying to do quiet intensity. He definitely has the quiet and he gets the intensity at times when he's allowed. This is most notable for its style of fake situations, narration from a side character, and an oddly strip down tone. The combination is interesting but somehow lifeless. Every aspect of this places distance between Tesla and the audience. Then there is the karaoke ending. It's another artistic choice which places a distance between this Tesla from reality and from the audience. It's fascinating but distancing.