A trailer for Tesla was released on Friday. The Michael Almereyda directorial is a biopic of Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. Ethan Hawke plays the titular role.
The trailer shows Hawke’s Tesla struggling to get his invention acknowledged. Tesla invented the alternating current, which is responsible for electrification of nearly the entire world.
The trailer also suggests that the movie will explore the uneasy relationship between Tesla and Thomas Edison (portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan in the film).
The cold war between the two once collaborators is called the War of the currents. In 2017, a movie on the topic called The Current War was released, in which Benedict Cumberbatch played Edison, and Nicholas Hoult played Tesla. Despite its stellar cast, the movie turned out to be terrible.
Tesla is certainly not your typical biopic. It does not appear to be staying true to what is known about the inventor. But that is okay as a biopic’s job is not necessarily to pass the veracity test, but to tell an entertaining story first and foremost.
But that does not appear to be the case here. Ethan Hawke, an otherwise brilliant actor, seems miscast. His accent does not sound natural and he looks sort of uncomfortable.
My favourite film appearance of Nikola Tesla remains music legend David Bowie’s cameo in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. Tesla’s trailer, at any rate, does not inspire confidence. The movie will hopefully be better.
The official synopsis of the film reads, “Brilliant, visionary Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition, then faces thornier challenges with his new system for worldwide wireless energy.
The film tracks Tesla’s uneasy interactions with his fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and his patron George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan).
Another thread traces Tesla’s sidewinding courtship of financial titan J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz), whose daughter Anne (Eve Hewson) takes a more than casual interest in the inventor.
Anne analyzes and presents the story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice to this scientific period drama which, like its subject, defies convention.”
The trailer says Tesla will hit theaters and video-on-demand on August 21. -Indian Express
