‘Tesla’ is a Weird, Surrealistic Ride
By: Sarah Callen
Tags: Movies, Movie Review, Tesla, Film, Film Reviews

And I’m not sure I liked it.

Tesla movie poster | IFC Films

Nikola Tesla is a historical figure that has fascinated people for many years. As both an enigma and a genius, he has sparked many different artistic versions and garnered much speculation about his actual character. I know very little about this particular historical figure, but I’m fairly confident that Tesla is not an accurate representation of his life, though it is, in many ways, a wild ride to be on.

It’s been a few days since I watched this film, currently streaming on Hulu, and I’m still not sure what to think about it. So, I’m just going to process through my various thoughts and I invite you to join me.

The Good

I think I would be remiss if I didn’t start with Ethan Hawke’s performance as the ingenious Nikola Tesla. Hawke really shows his skill at giving an incredibly restrained performance. For most of the film, he simply sits and silently stares at someone else. He doesn’t speak a whole lot and when he does, it’s rarely above the level of a quiet whisper. But, somehow, he’s not boring. While watching, I knew there was a whole world inside of his head that we just aren’t able to see. He doesn’t speak until he has something to say, so you know, when he does speak, that it’s going to be good.

In a scene early on in the film, we see Tesla and Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) sitting around the table eating ice cream cones. At first, it didn’t occur to me that ice cream cones might not have existed during this time period, I just thought it was an unusual creative choice for such serious men having serious conversations.

Though untrue to actual events, the ice cream cone fight was so oddly satisfying to me. I absolutely loved watching these two men confront and challenge each other without using fisticuffs or a duel of some kind. It was such a brilliant moment of creativity that let us know early on that this was going to be a strange movie. This whimsical scene warned us that we were about to veer way off the beaten path.

This scene was what helped me keep going — I was waiting for another moment as good as this one. Sadly, the ice cream fight was the highlight for me.

Kyle MacLachlan and Ethan Hawke in Tesla | IFC Films

Despite my issues with the film that we will get into, I loved much of the artistry it employs. A few of the sets, particularly Tesla’s time in Colorado, are clearly on a sound stage with a painted backdrop behind them. They didn’t seem to try and make it seem as though they are actually in Colorado, but leaned into Tesla’s own abstraction from reality. And I think that’s a pretty brilliant way to communicate Tesla’s state of mind. While he did so much for technology and the world, he was always at least a little (sometimes a lot) out of reach. His head was always in the clouds or busy solving some problem.

I’m not sure if the artistic backdrops were intentional to show Tesla’s disconnection from reality, but that’s the way I interpreted this creative choice.

The Bad

Tesla creatively interrupts the story with narration from Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson). At first, I really enjoyed this. I thought it was a fun way to add some context to this story that I was watching. But the longer it went on, the breaks began to feel a little like a nuisance. I started not to care what Anne had to say, I wanted to see more of Tesla as his life began to spiral. I wished the film had kept me in “the action” a little more, instead of cutting away for more narration or exposition.

Whenever I watch a movie or TV show, I am on the lookout for product placement and I didn’t even have to look all that hard with Tesla. At certain points, this whole film felt like a commercial for Apple and Google. While I happily use both of those services, I began to wonder if the purpose of the breaks from the story were less about the plot itself and more about funding this particular film.

While product placement can be a great way to get funding, I have an issue with it when the plot is serving the product instead of the product serving the plot. I hope that I’m misinterpreting these scenes, but my cynicism kicked into high gear. I ended up questioning the point of those breaks in the story instead of enjoying the creative risks the filmmakers took.

The Ugly

If you’ve watched Tesla, you probably saw where this was going. I was tracking with this movie amidst all of the weirdness, even thoroughly enjoying some of it, until I got to the end. I just couldn’t enjoy him singing Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, karaoke-style.

I’ve read some reviews of people who absolutely loved this and if that’s you, I absolutely respect your opinion and I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was just a step too weird for me. I think it was trying to get me to understand Tesla’s mentality of wanting more than he could have, but I feel there are less weird ways to communicate his particular mindset.

I love creative ideas and unusual storytelling that serve the purpose of the film, but I just couldn’t see how this particular creative choice furthered anything about the character or the story. It was also tonally so different than the rest of the film that I felt as though I went from 1880 to 1980 in a heartbeat — something I wasn’t prepared for. It was jarring and unpleasant for me. I sat on my couch, stunned at what I was seeing, unsure what exactly to make of it.

My Conclusion: It’s a Wild Ride!

Tesla is a very unique film. It’s an ambitious way to tell a story about a man who has made a great impact on the world. But I’m not sure that it worked. While there are plenty of good things about this particular film, there are bad and ugly parts too. I wanted to like this one but, in the end, I thought it was just okay. I’m still confused by many parts of it, but don’t want to give much more time or energy trying to figure it all out.

I think Telsa proves that sometimes novelty and weirdness can go too far and detract from the film as a whole. I applaud this creative endeavor, but I think this one missed the mark.