tesla movie review rotten tomatoes

Controlled, alert, and seemingly game for anything, Ethan Hawke has become one of the most reliable presences in movies. Unfortunately, director Michael Almereyda’s risk-taking historical drama “Tesla,” about inventor Nikola Tesla, never quite adds up in the way one might wish. And it inadvertently puts Hawke in the position of having to carry a film that’s more of a series of half-formed notions, some intriguing, others ill-advised, and a few verging perilously close to cute. 

Throughout most of the movie, Tesla is stuck either reacting to other, more lively characters (including Kyle MacLachlan , radiating authority and self-regard as inventor Thomas Edison), fretting about his own approach to generating and harnessing electricity, and putting his important relationships on the back burner. It’s tough to say what this film’s version of Tesla is all about, in any sense, because it’s more interested in digressions that feel like something that would make better sense in an underground theater production. 

Tesla’s main squeeze Anne ( Eve Hewson of “The Knick”), the daughter of financier J. Pierpont Morgan, narrates the story, and serves as the anchor point for Almereyda’s self-aware asides. At one point she opens an Apple laptop computer and tells us that Tesla, for all his brilliance, returns half as many Google search results as Edison, and that there are only a handful of photos of Tesla in existence. An early scene of Tesla pushing back against Edison’s cheerful arrogance ends with the two men jabbing ice cream cones into each other’s clothes and faces. Ann cuts the moment short to inform us that it’s unlikely that anything like that ever happened. Then we watch an “accurate” replay of the scene, which wasn’t all that interesting until the ice cream fight began.

How can a viewer become intellectually and emotionally invested in a story that has a human question mark at its center? Other biographical dramas have mostly solved the problem, notably “ Lawrence of Arabia ,” but it’s not easy, especially on a low budget. And this one doesn’t do itself any favors by concentrating on flourishes and marginalia and the question of how it’s even possible to know a historical personage, especially one who didn’t leave as much of a biographical paper trail as some of his contemporaries. 

“Tesla” is worth seeing for obsessives who want to watch anything Hawke does, or who are fascinated by unconventional approaches to storytelling in the time of Edison. The supporting cast is aces; the standout is  Jim Gaffigan as George Westinghouse, pumping so much life into his character that you wouldn’t be surprised if he opened his mouth and started singing Gilbert and Sullivan. 

Almereyda is a great and still largely unsung American filmmaker, distinguished by his determination to take risks in both style and content. His 2000 modern-dress version of “Hamlet,” starring Hawke as Shakepeare’s prince, might be his masterpiece, though it’s hard to choose from a filmography that includes gems like the vampire film “ Nadja ” (with Peter Fonda as Van Helsing, partly shot with a toy Pixelvision video camera) and 2017’s unique science fiction drama “ Marjorie Prime .” But this one doesn’t rank with his best. 

There’s a subcategory of biography with a message that might be summed up as, “How can anybody know anybody from another time period? Biography is just speculation anyway.” Whether a film in that vein fails or succeeds depends on more than craft and invention. It’s a mysterious thing. There’s magic involved. For whatever reason, “Tesla” is short on magic. It’s a film about electricity and light that never fully illuminates its main character, and there are long stretches when it feels more like a dramatized series of notes for a movie than a movie.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla
• Kyle MacLachlan as Thomas Edison
• Hannah Gross as Mina Edison
• Josh Hamilton as Robert Underwood Johnson
• Eve Hewson as Anne Morgan
• Jim Gaffigan as George Westinghouse
• John Paesano
• Kathryn J. Schubert
• Michael Almereyda

Cinematographer

• Sean Price Williams

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Tesla is a weird, fourth-wall-breaking take on the internet’s favorite inventor

It’s the kind of biopic where ethan hawke sings tears for fears.

By Adi Robertson , a senior tech and policy editor focused on VR, online platforms, and free expression. Adi has covered video games, biohacking, and more for The Verge since 2011.

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Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Thomas Edison is the inventor you learn about in school. Nikola Tesla is the inventor you learn about on the internet — whether that’s The Oatmeal’s massive 2012 paean to “the greatest geek who ever lived;” Kate Beaton’s sexy Tesla comic ; or the Drunk History episode where he’s played by John C. Reilly. (That’s not even counting the memes about Elon Musk’s car company and David Bowie in The Prestige. )

Tesla , directed by Michael Almereyda, adds one very important thing to this canon: a full-length rendition of the inventor (played by Ethan Hawke) singing the Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in a slightly off-key drone. It’s oddly charming and one of the moments where Tesla’s weird pseudo-biopic approach works — although it’s counterbalanced with just as many scenes that don’t quite come together.

What’s the genre?

A fun, if slightly silly, bait-and-switch. Tesla starts like a straight-faced biographic film about the 19th-century war of the currents , with Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) famously refusing to give Tesla a promised $50,000 payment. But for initially unclear reasons, they’re both eating ice cream cones. As the argument escalates, the men stand up and begin to gesticulate at each other. Then, Tesla smashes his cone in Edison’s face — and the film cuts to J.P. Morgan’s daughter Anne (Eve Hewson), sitting behind a MacBook, informing us that this scene probably never happened.

Tesla has more moments that break the fourth wall or explore what-if scenarios, and it’s ostentatiously low-budget as well — virtually every “outdoor” set is a clearly painted backdrop, for instance. At the same time, it straightforwardly follows the major beats of Tesla’s life from his work with Edison to his research on wireless power in Colorado.

What’s it about?

Nikola Tesla is a brilliant inventor with a machine that could provide electricity to the world. His alternating current design clashes with Thomas Edison’s direct current model, though, and Edison begins a vicious campaign against AC that involves electrocuting dogs to death with it. (This actually happened, although it’s complicated .)

Ultimately, AC takes over the power grid. But Tesla is too idealistic and ambitious for his own good. He gives up a royalty deal for his invention, then begins work on a wireless power system with huge potential but little opportunity for profit. His fortunes dwindle, and his ideas become increasingly bizarre — although the film doesn’t go as far as noting Tesla’s later full-throated support for eugenics . After a long life, he dies widely admired but penniless. (I’m sorry if I just spoiled Nikola Tesla’s death, but to be fair, it happened nearly 80 years ago.)

What’s it really about?

Tesla hews to the well-established and arguably fair “David and Goliath” narrative of Tesla the idealistic small-time inventor fighting Edison the caddish businessman. While it doesn’t quite depict Tesla as the “nicest geek ever,” as The Oatmeal dubbed him, it thoroughly averts the “arrogant genius” archetype and makes a case for Tesla being mostly uninterested in people but still deeply humanistic.

Hawke’s Tesla nearly folds into himself when he sits with a colleague, and he’s more quietly self-deprecating than aloof. He gets exasperated with investors who don’t understand how his inventions could help humanity — which, far more than pure technical achievement, is always on his mind. But he stresses that nobody, including him, should claim to be a scientific expert. And while he’s resolutely celibate, he maintains a long-standing friendship with philanthropist Anne Morgan, who acts as the film’s narrator.

Is it good?

Tesla has oddball panache and is probably more compelling than a conventional period piece would be. Beyond obvious gags like the ice cream fight or Morgan pulling up Google search results, it’s got some delightfully deadpan humor. It embraces the fact that Tesla is a well-known and widely idealized cultural hero at this point, focusing on vignettes that explore particularly interesting and dramatic moments in his life.

The problem is that these moments aren’t always interesting or dramatic, and they leave too much plot to Morgan’s quirky, documentary-style narration. The film’s deliberate lo-fi design leads to endless shots of people sitting in cramped and dreary rooms — although there is a great scene involving the French actress Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan) slinking and brooding through a snowy walk with Tesla. And Hawke leans so hard into Tesla’s sensitivity that he seems almost constantly on the verge of tears.

If Tesla had appeared during the Nikola Tesla revival a decade ago, I’d tentatively call it a cult hit. At the very least, Hawke’s musical number would rack up the views on YouTube. Now, it’s more noteworthy as an ambitious movie made with intriguingly tight constraints — even if the results, like Tesla’s big ideas, don’t always work.

How can I actually watch it?

Tesla rights were acquired by IFC Films, and it’s available to rent or buy as of August 21st.

Correction: Sarah Bernhardt is played by Rebecca Dayan, not Hannah Gross. We regret the error.

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Tesla (2020) | Film Review

Aaron B. Peterson August 19, 2020

Nikola Tesla was one of the more unappreciated geniuses of his era. Born in 1856, Tesla lived long with the ever-present opportunity to prosper, only to die destitute and alone in 1943. Along the way, Tesla rubbed elbows with the like of Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, all in the pursuit of his various inventions, most notably his efforts to harness and distribute wireless energy. It is a story rarely told and therefore ripe for Michael Almereyda’s biography.

Almereyda writes and directs Tesla , which focuses its eye on Nikola Telsa’s (Ethan Hawke) various dalliances with captains of industry throughout history such as the aforementioned Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan) – both actors surprisingly yet perfectly cast in their respective roles – all while desperately pleading and appealing to anyone who will listen to support his revolutionary yet outrageous ideas. There are touches of Tesla’s personal life as well, nods to affections between Nikola and Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson, absolutely captivating and whom also narrates the film with modern tools at her disposal), along with many other sordid details that often beg us to question their authenticity.

Therein begins the issues within Almereyda’s take on Tesla , it is just so difficult to decipher what to make of it all. On one hand, Almereyda refuses to succumb to archetypes and dictated narrative structure. If there is a handbook for writing a biopic, he handily chucks it out the window at first glance. Michael Almereyda aspires to carve out his own brand of biography, rules be damned. There is a decadent beauty watching the filmmaker refuse to bend the knee to clichés, and this aspiration deserves respect.

On the other hand, bodacious choices or not, the film still needs to work as a whole. Anne’s narration – make no mistake – is not a product of its time. Rather this aspect is an invention allowed to invoke Google searches and Wiki updates as exposition vehicles. Pontificating on Tesla’s intellectual foretelling of the possibilities in technology soars if you’re attending a college lecture, though it rarely translates into riveting cinema. There are numerous attempts to shortcut history through modern twists in Tesla with a varying degree of success, yet as a whole the film suffers because of it. One moment even thrusts the oddest of choices upon us: an astoundingly head-scratching karaoke performance of Tears for Fears’ “ Everybody Wants to Rule the World ”…delivered in character. What?

Versatile thespian Ethan Hawke assumes the role of Serbian-American Nikola Tesla, marking his portrayal of Tesla’s fractured soul with mundane posturing under his gravely tone, and Hawke gives it his trademark best. Much like Tesla himself, Hawke has carved out a solid career as the most talented member of his class who manages to somehow avoid mainstream success at almost every turn. That said, there is only so much Hawke can do with what is on the page and this dour approach, there simply isn’t enough to allow the actor to truly pop on screen as the renowned inventor.

Tesla is stacked with potential: talented performers, brilliant yet tortured historical figure, and modern solutions to narrative tropes. Though an admirable attempt to color outside the lines, the package delivered fails to reach that potential by repeatedly forgetting to find its footing and a steady tone.

In a world of limitless energy, Tesla is simply running on batteries.

Tesla releases in theaters and VOD August 21, 2020 Starring Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Eve Hewson, Jim Gaffigan Screenplay by Michael Almereyda Directed by Michael Almereyda

Tags ethan hawke eve hewson jim gaffigan kyle maclachlan Michael Almereyda tesla

About Aaron B. Peterson

Review by Brian Eggert August 22, 2020

In Michael Almereyda’s Tesla , two nineteenth-century inventors confront each other with ice cream cones. The older, brasher Thomas Edison, played by Kyle MacLachlan, questions the safety of alternating current, licking his dessert as though it were an insult. Ethan Hawke’s Nikola Tesla, the practitioner of alternating current, born in what is today Croatia in 1856, tongues his vanilla treat in defiance. Tesla believes Edison owes him money for his work, and the two men use their cones like swords to stab their opponent. They spar until Tesla smashes his cone onto Edison’s face. The frame freezes. “This is pretty surely not how it happened,” says a woman’s voice. That would be Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), daughter of J.P. Morgan, who finds herself drawn to the central character. He thinks too much, has no business savvy, and has no interest in self-promotion, but there’s something magnetic about him. Anne frequently breaks into the picture, sometimes addressing the audience directly and sometimes using Google image results to prove a point. She tells Tesla’s story because the inward inventor would never be so self-obsessed as Edison, who, by contrast, would have gladly narrated his own biographical film. That’s part of Tesla’s charm. He’s an eccentric who wants only to explore the ideas in his mind. But it’s also the reason Edison is a household name, and Tesla remains on the margins of history. 

A work of Brechtian filmmaking that feels less like Tesla’s dramatized life story than an essay about how visionaries must contend with the demands of capitalism, Tesla presents a dazzlingly unconventional biopic. Earlier this year, Marjane Satrapi injected some off-the-wall flourishes into Radioactive , her account of Marie Curie, yet she did so within the traditional framework of a biographical drama. As in Experimenter , Almereyda’s 2015 account of Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience to Authority” study, the director commits to a presentation that gets to the root of his subject’s scientific interests without the usual procession of dull, dramatic moments. Instead, there’s something strange and different about every scene, requiring the viewer to constantly assess and reconsider how the film presents its character. It’s less detailed about Tesla’s scientific advancements than Milgram’s investigation into human behavior; there’s no CGI to illustrate the differences between AC versus DC for those viewers who might not remember their lessons from high school science (beyond clarifying that AC results in “no sparks”). But Almereyda’s treatment sympathizes with Tesla’s desire to invent a type of energy that would, hypothetically, eliminate the need to commodify heat, water, and electricity. 

Even though he died alone and destitute in New York, in 1943, having outlived his many competitors and investors, history has been kinder to Tesla. He appears on statues and memorials around the world, and Elon Musk put his name on an electric car. The cinema has used him mostly as a peripheral figure shrouded in secrecy and mysticism. Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006) featured Tesla, played by David Bowie, as a scientist who recognizes that his discoveries looked like magic. Nicholas Hoult played him in last year’s The Current War , albeit in a minor role. Only The Secret of Nikola Tesla , a Polish film from 1980, notable for Orson Welles’ appearance as J.P. Morgan, has given Tesla the full treatment. Still, Almereyda’s film offers insight into why Tesla, ever financially outmatched by the Edisons of his world, was left overshadowed by other captains of industry. When Anne takes out her MacBook and tells us that Google finds just three or four photos of Tesla, yet there are thousands of Edison, she reveals a crucial component of Tesla’s character. Here’s a man whose AC technology illuminated the entire Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, yet he chose, or did not have the promotional acumen, to exploit his talents for personal gain. 

Almereyda’s approach could be accused of putting a distance between the viewer and his film, but Anne implants a curiosity about the inventor. She appears just as Tesla’s best advocate, friend and fellow inventor Szigeti (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), heads to South America, leaving Tesla to manage his own affairs with George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan) and J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz). She seems to love him, or at least admire him enough to hope for more. But Tesla’s idealism and obsession with the unattainable— represented by his interest in Sarah Bernhardt, played by Rebecca Dayan—leave him blind to Anne’s willingness to help him achieve his goals with a mutually beneficial coupling. In one of her remarks to the camera, Anne observes that Tesla needed an “enlightened hustler to guide him through the crass commercial world.” Tesla remains oblivious to these concerns, unable to combat Edison’s ruthless smear campaigns, such as a press conference where he kills a dog with alternating current to prove it’s dangerous. While Edison manipulates his image with the public, Tesla dissuades future investors, who think he sounds like a crackpot when he talks about contacting Martians, photographing thoughts, and building an electrical gun.

Similar to Experimenter , Almereyda’s spry and invigorated mise-en-scène, designed by Carl Sprague, keeps the viewer conscious of his simultaneous representation and commentary. Beyond the use of modern devices and Google search result analysis, some of the visual flourishes may have been compelled by the production’s limited budget, reportedly $5 million. Yet, the dialectical approach serves our understanding of Tesla himself. When the inventor looks over Niagara Falls, where he consulted on a massive AC power generator, Hawke appears before a false backdrop on a soundstage, the effect intentional, underscoring how Tesla felt at a remove from the world he inhabited. More than once, the director uses rear-projected images to give his film a stage-like quality. He also uses obvious scale miniatures to recreate the Wardenclyffe plant, where Tesla hoped to use the earth as a conductor to send messages to the other side of the planet. Along with cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ skewed angles and fisheye lenses, or the point of view shots where Tesla sees invisible energy flowing over everything, Almereyda creates a character who lives inside his head, arguably to a fault.

Tesla may cause some viewers to recoil at how Almereyda injects modern devices, uses historically inappropriate references, and breaks the Fourth Wall throughout. But his perspective grants the viewer a better understanding of how Tesla operated both ahead of and outside of time, offering an unlikely example of form-follows-function. At one point, Edison lights up a cigar and defiantly takes out his smartphone, probably to check his Twitter feed. Tesla, meanwhile, probably doesn’t use social media. His more inward approach finds him performing a karaoke rendition of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears on an empty stage. Hawke’s wobbly vocal performance, a sad reflection of a man who rarely expresses himself but had a grand vision—he hoped to use electricity to turn the world “into a huge brain”—offers a performance just as woeful and internalized as his role in First Reformed (2018). Either you will embrace this sort of playfulness, which operates outside of prescribed norms just as Tesla did, or you’ll wish for something more straightforward. In any case, Almereyda has captured the essence of Tesla. From Almereyda’s fascinating emphasis on method over the artifice of a commercial production, we realize that a more traditional film just wouldn’t do. 

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Ethan Hawke’s unconventional ‘Tesla’ could use some more spark

Tesla is a bit of a mess, but at least it’s not another plodding biopic. That honor, in electrical-inventor history, belongs to The Current War, which even the reptilian charms of Benedict Cumberbatch couldn’t save.

In his second collaboration with Ethan Hawke , director Michael Almereyda (Marjorie Prime,  Hamlet ) conjures a deeply odd portrait of a deeply odd man. Nikola Tesla (Hawke) was a Serbian-American inventor who, among many prescient innovations, allegedly came up with the idea for the internet nearly a century before conservatives started making up stories about Al Gore claiming that honor.

I didn’t know much about Tesla beyond David Bowie’s rendition of him in 2006’s The Prestige and Elon Musk’s car company, and I’m not sure I know much more about him now. I can say that alternating current was his thing, and that he and Thomas Edison (Kyle McLachlan) butted heads over whose electrical system was better. In Almereyda’s unconventional telling, the two end up having an ice cream cone fight about it. “This never happened,” our narrator (Eve Hewson) immediately chimes in. Cool!

TESLA ★★★ (3/5 stars) Directed by: Michael Almereyda Written by: Michael Almereyda Starring: Ethan Hawke, Eve Hewson, Kyle MacLachlan, Jim Gaffigan Running time: 102 mins

Almereyda plays fast and loose with the fourth-wall breaks, jumping through the ages to have the corseted Hewson remark on things like how many hits you’ll get when you Google Tesla’s name. He also features the inventor singing Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World . It’s enjoyably daffy and experimental, like a really well-funded high-school play, right down to the painted backdrops that set various scenes throughout.

Hawke plays Tesla as a sort of proto-Goth, a shy and cerebral type who never figured out how to market himself well enough to realize his dreams. Of course he’s a swoony object of curiosity for the ladies, including Hewson’s Anne Morgan, daughter of world’s richest man J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz ) , and the actress Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan). But Tesla is too in his head for romance, so this reduces Anne to being the patron and friend who tries to nudge him toward success.

This was the late 19th Century, a time when animal experimentation was really taking off. Tesla meets George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan, always a welcome presence), and the electrical entrepreneur tells him about an experiment of Edison’s involving electrocuting dogs. A subsequent scene begins in close focus on a paw having a shackle placed on it, and I’m going to admit to you I just skipped right ahead to the next scene. It’s possible the dog-electrocution sequence holds all the clues to really understanding Tesla, but I doubt it, and I just really didn’t want to see it. This may be a dereliction of critical duty, but my mopey-eyed hound dog is going to back me up on it.

I found much of Tesla a little sluggish, aside from its asides. There are a couple of splashy, dynamic sequences, including the inventor’s attempt to harness a lightning storm and Bernhardt making a spectacular entrance, but in too many moments Tesla’s introversion just makes for bad cinema. He sags in the corner of the frame, too genius for this world yet not possessed of enough of a charismatic spark (sorry) to light up a room.

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Sara Stewart is a film critic and a culture and entertainment writer whose work is featured in the New York Post, CNN.com, and more. A Rotten Tomatoes certified reviewer for both film and television, Sara's work can be fully appreciated at sarastewart.org. But not on Twitter, because she’s been troll-free since 2018.

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‘Tesla’ Review: Lightning Strikes, but Quietly

Ethan Hawke plays the melancholy visionary Nikola Tesla in Michael Almereyda’s meditative anti-biopic.

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By A.O. Scott

When we first see Nikola Tesla, he is on roller skates, making his way with dignified caution across a marble floor at some kind of Gilded Age gathering. It’s 1893. Later — though some years earlier in the looped chronology of Michael Almereyda’s new film — Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison, his rival and erstwhile employer, attack each other with ice cream cones. At another point, our narrator, Anne Morgan (daughter of the mighty financier J. Pierpont Morgan), flips open a laptop to compare the results of a Google search for Tesla and Edison. These whimsical moments of speculation and anachronism remind us that “Tesla,” which chronicles a crucial period in the inventor’s life, is anything but a conventional biopic.

Thank goodness for that. My own internet investigations yielded the fascinating (to me, at least) datum that Tesla and I share a birthday, and also an extensive Wikipedia page devoted to “Nikola Tesla in Popular Culture.” While hardly obscure in his lifetime, Tesla, who was born in what is now Croatia in 1856 and died in a New York hotel in 1943, has in recent decades become a fixture in the cool-nerd pantheon. He bequeathed his name to an electric car . David Bowie played him in a Christopher Nolan movie .

The mystique arises from the sense that Tesla anticipated, at least in theory, much of the technology we now marvel at and complain about, including global wireless communication. But as Anne Morgan notes, very few images of him will pop up when you Google, and he retains a stubborn aura of mystery.

Almereyda, a notably cerebral filmmaker who thinks in arresting, elusive images, doesn’t set out to solve the riddle so much as to find new ways of articulating it. Ethan Hawke, with somber countenance and a heavy mustache, plays Tesla as a restless soul burdened by genius and haunted by melancholy. A less imaginative film might have tried to trace that sorrow to a source in childhood, or to establish a link between Tesla’s saturnine temperament and his unsettled career. But the character, in Hawke’s quietly magnetic performance, is neither a heroic visionary nor a tragic hero. He’s a mood.

The film follows his brooding progress from Edison’s workshop to the 1893 World’s Fair, and then onward to Colorado and Long Island, where Tesla pursues increasingly grand and esoteric ideas. Along the way, he attracts and alienates allies, investors and potential lovers. A flicker of romantic interest passes between him and Anne (Eve Hewson), but it isn’t strong enough to melt Tesla’s commitment to solitude and chastity. He also draws the radiant attention of the actress Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan), who, like him, appears as a prophetic figure in a rapidly modernizing world — an avatar of the nascent celebrity culture that will expand alongside the new technologies.

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Experimental film about electricity giant sparks curiosity.

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Parents need to know that Tesla is a stylistically experimental biopic of electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke). It definitely isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea: Scenes are woven together by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), daughter of financier/banker J.P. Morgan, using a MacBook and narrating…

Why Age 13+?

Romantic interest, flirtation. A woman wears a see-through shirt. A prominently

In one scene, an angry character says "goddamned" and "son of a bitch."

Smoking and cigar chomping. Drinking.

In different scenes, a dog and a man are killed, off-camera.

MacBook is featured prominently.

Any Positive Content?

Tesla followed his curiosity to develop patents and be a leader in development o

Shows power of curiosity and perseverance. Genius needs to find a trusted partne

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Romantic interest, flirtation. A woman wears a see-through shirt. A prominently displayed painting depicts naked men.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive role models.

Tesla followed his curiosity to develop patents and be a leader in development of electricity. Philanthropist Anne Morgan is portrayed as an intelligent powerhouse, though her sexual identity seems to be misrepresented (she's shown as having unrequited love for Tesla but in real life preferred women).

Positive Messages

Shows power of curiosity and perseverance. Genius needs to find a trusted partner to guide it through the business elements. But there's also strong messaging that wealth trumps brilliance as a key to changing the world and making a name for yourself.

Parents need to know that Tesla is a stylistically experimental biopic of electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla ( Ethan Hawke ). It definitely isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea: Scenes are woven together by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), daughter of financier/banker J.P. Morgan, using a MacBook and narrating something akin to Tesla's Wikipedia page. The settings, the music, and other elements become more unrealistic as the film goes on, and statistics are shared in a way that's hard to retain. But historical figures like Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Sarah Bernhardt are part of Tesla's life, and it's all intriguing enough that teens may take the movie's repeated suggestion to Google these turn-of-the-20th-century icons. Hopefully they will, because while they have their faults, they're still inspirational, particularly Anne. Her intelligence is shown to be on par with Tesla's, and she's a confident businesswoman who isn't afraid to speak her mind. However, the film potentially misrepresents Anne's sexual identity by portraying her as having unrequited love for Tesla; in real life, Anne Morgan preferred women. In terms of iffy content, a woman wears a see-through shirt, and a prominently displayed painting depicts naked men. Characters smoke cigarettes and cigars (accurate for the time period) and drink. A moment of profanity includes the words "goddamn" and "son of a bitch." Both a man and a dog die off-screen. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

A Disappointing Movie About An Interesting Person

What's the story.

TESLA takes an avant-garde approach to exploring the life of visionary scientist Nikola Tesla ( Ethan Hawke ) during his most prolific years as an inventor. Narrated by philanthropist Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) -- daughter of financier/banker J.P. Morgan -- Tesla's success and failure is measured through his relationships with her and her father, as well as with Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Sarah Bernhardt, and Tesla's mother.

Is It Any Good?

Writer-director Michael Almereyda 's unconventional approach to telling Tesla's life story isn't so much electric as shockingly disappointing. An eccentric take on the revolutionary inventor is perhaps an appropriate tribute. Certainly, as the film points out, Tesla didn't always know how to communicate his ideas compared to his more marketing-savvy competitors. And maybe it's also appropriate that the film ends with Tesla remaining as much of a mystery as he's always been.

That doesn't mean information on the electrical systems designer isn't provided. It is -- so much so, in fact, that it's nearly impossible to retain it all. In an approach that's hard to understand, 19th century Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) breaks the fourth wall to talk directly to viewers to instruct, analyze, and sometimes opine on Tesla. It's a little like Drunk History , but boring. The longer the movie goes, it begins to feel like they ran out of money, shooting against a green screen canvas or photograph. And -- spoiler alert ? -- the penultimate moment, when Tesla reflects on his life's challenges through song, will go down as one of cinema's most "what the heck?" endings. You may not be able to make head or tails of it. But, then again, the same could be said for Nikola Tesla himself.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the filmmakers' approach to telling Nikola Tesla's story. How does Tesla compare to other biopics you've seen? How would you describe Tesla's contributions to electrical systems?

How does Tesla exemplify curiosity and perseverance ? Could his inventions have been realized without those qualities?

A romantic admiration is imagined here between Tesla and Anne Morgan, who did have some kind of friendly relationship in real life. Do you think it's right to expound on that and give it overtones of attraction? Does knowing that the real-life Morgan came out later in life change your opinion?

Why do you think Tesla has become a revered icon? Would you rather be successful while you're alive and then forgotten, or die broke and alone but be considered one of the greats and remembered forever?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 21, 2020
• On DVD or streaming : February 2, 2021
• Cast : Ethan Hawke , Kyle MacLachlan , Eve Hewson
• Director : Michael Almereyda
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : IFC Films
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : STEM , Great Boy Role Models , Science and Nature
• Run time : 102 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : some thematic material and nude images
• Last updated : April 29, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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What to watch next.

The Current War: Director's Cut

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Drunk History

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Search Reeling Reviews

‘Is nature a giant cat and if so, who strokes its back?’ asks a young boy after his father explains that the static electricity he just saw on his pet was the same element that shot through the sky.  Knowing that his pursuit of knowledge would result in the ignorance of recognizing just how much more he didn’t know, the boy did it anyway.  After immigrating to America, he would become one of its greatest inventors, his belief in alternating current in conflict with his one time boss, Thomas Edison’s (Kyle MacLachlan), insistence on direct current.  His name was Nikola “Tesla.”

Laura's Review: B+

While writer/director Michael Almereyda ("Nadja," "Majorie Prime") covers much the same ground as last year’s “The Current War,” his film couldn’t be more different, beginning with its continuing feline theme.  Almereyda’s idiosyncratic, often anachronistic take features a narrator, Anne Morgan (a note perfect Eve Hewson, "This Must Be the Place"), who frequently advises us that what we are seeing ‘didn’t happen that way,’ but what a joy it is to watch Tesla mash an ice cream cone into Edison’s face in an escalating food fight!   Ethan Hawke’s intense, slightly mannered performance (which, in fact, suits the character) makes the juxtaposition of his period perfection journeying through environments on roller skates or expos where a Smartphone is checked and even stepping up to a microphone to perform Tears for Fears ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ spark like Tesla’s magnifying transmitter.

Almereyda’s telling of the tale presents Edison as slightly more benign, although MacLachlan feels miscast here.  Edison’s first wife’s death is far less romanticized than in “The Current War,” the reason for death stated as a morphine overdose.  By dint of using Hewson’s Anne as our guide, “Tesla” is more episodic, but all the major moments are here – from Edison’s trying to discount George Westinghouse’s (Jim Gaffigan, looking the part but sounding a touch too modern) belief in Tesla’s alternating current with demonstrations cruelly electrocuting animals (Almereyda really pushes our buttons by using a dog with pleading eyes) to hatchet murder William Kemmler’s (Blake DeLong, Netflix's "When They See Us") horrifically botched execution to the Pavilion of Lights at the World’s Fair.  The later features another imagined scene, Edison treating Tesla to a piece of pie and the admission that he was wrong about alternating current.

Of course one of the main differences between the films is Almereyda’s focus on Tesla versus Edison and Westinghouse and the man he and Hawke paint is so work obsessed he clings to chastity as a necessary condition, much to Anne’s frustration.  He’s also kind and trusting, traits which would frequently make him the victim of swindlers (Anne will ask if idealism can coexist with Capitalism).  We see the swirl of celebrity drawn to Tesla’s magnetism, from Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan, "Limitless") to an Indian guru to financier J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz, "Ad Astra"), who funded much of his work.

As in his film on social psychologist Stanley Milgram, "Experimenter," the filmmaker gets around budgetary restrictions employing various devices, like the still photograph backdrops he frequently uses to establish location, his actors walking in front of them.  One gloriously demented scene featuring Tesla’s transmitter plays like a cross between Robert Egger’s “The Lighthouse” climax and James Whales’ “Frankenstein.”  Almereyda’s shaken up the biopic and his “Tesla” is electrifying.

Robin's Review: B

Nicola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) was an inventor, engineer and forward-thinking futurist who was a Thomas Edison employee, contemporary genius, competitor and the man who brought AC power the world. His story is told, with elements of the future he would inspire, in “Tesla.”

This is writer/director Michael Almereyda’s first foray in telling a historical biographical story of a man who we knew little about, until fairly recently, mainly because of Elon Musk’s same-named electric car company. The result is a combination of an old fashion biography – I thought of the old biopics of the 1930s and 40s, like “Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) and “The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)” – and a story that uses tantalizing hints of the future to advance that bio.

This is a three-hander with Tesla, Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), daughter of financier J.P. Morgan and Tesla’s fictionalized paramour, mentor and muse and the stories narrator. Obviously, the main focus is on Nicola the inventor and genius and his collaboration with Edison (giving a thumbnail look at the iconic inventor of the light bulb, his arrogance and ruthlessness).

The use of Anne Morgan and her fictional relationship with Tesla may turn off some with its creative invention. I found the idea and Hewson’s assured performance to actually advance the story and helped make the taciturn Tesla sympathetic.

The filmmakers touch upon the many things during the course of “Tesla,” especially the rivalry that developed between Edison and his once-employee. Edison, who invented DC power, had visions of being the man to electrify the world. Tesla’s rival invention of AC current, though, proved better and more efficient, sparking the rivalry that would last for years.

Director Almereyda touches on all of Tesla’s career points and the production covers those points quite well, including the Edison-Tesla feud over which electrical current, AC versus DC, kills more humanely – DC lost in a horrific way. As expected, the inventor’s tinkering with electricity is on display, especially his grand experiment to provide wireless power to the world.

The combination of historical biopic and modern invention inserted in it may be a distraction for some but for me it worked, And, I got a history lesson, of sorts, too.

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