Power. Ego. Money. Glory. Narcissism. Achievement. Love.
Those motivations have propelled many of the men and women history remembers best, whether fondly or not so fondly.
But not Nikola Tesla—at least as he’s portrayed by Ethan Hawke in this artsy biopic chronicling the Croatian-born inventor’s churning, yearning inner life and motivations.
Instead, we meet a man driven by sheer, pure passion for ideas, for possibilities, for scientific discovery. “Sometimes it seems all I do is think, days and weeks on end,” he tells someone who critiques his ability to relate to others. “Like my brain is burning.” And that burning, churning mind is intent upon one thing: his visionary ideas for producing and distributing electricity to the masses.
Of course, when we think about electricity’s inception, most of us think first of the better-known Thomas Edison. As this story opens in 1884, Tesla has arrived from Europe and finds himself in Edison’s employ. But Tesla’s hope of finding a kindred spirit who’ll take his ideas seriously is dashed, and the two soon part ways due to their different ideas about how best to create electrical power.
Edison is convinced that direct current will illuminate the world of the future. It is safer and more efficient, he preaches, than Tesla’s rival alternating current. Tesla, however, gains a powerful ally in inventor and entrepreneur George Westinghouse. And Westinghouse pays Tesla handsomely for his alternating-current patents.
In the time it takes to flip a switch, the war for the electrical current of the future is on, with Tesla’s maverick blueprints for an illuminated world playing catch-up to Edison’s technological head start.
And chronicling Tesla’s journey throughout this movie is Anne Morgan, daughter of industrial tycoon J.P. Morgan. Anne’s affection for Tesla is as plain as lightning in the sky. But when sparks fly in this film, they’re almost always the electrical variety, not the romantic kind.
More than anything, Tesla is a character study of what motivated this ethnic Serbian (later a naturalized American citizen) to devote his life to harnessing the power of electricity.
For better or worse, Nikola Tesla (as he’s depicted here) is consumed by his quest to transform the world as we know it. He believes his discoveries can deliver “light, heat, motive power, a complete system of communication for people previously living under the most wretched circumstances. And we will be able to do it cheaply.”
Idealism, Tesla certainly doesn’t lack. Or vision. But Anne Morgan rightly recognizes an almost childlike naivete in the man she adores. Growing up as the daughter of the world’s richest man, Anne understands that brilliant ideas alone will not transform the world. Revolutionary change demands equal attention to economics and the savvy to promote effectively and navigate between allies and enemies.
Anne tries, almost completely in vain, to complement Tesla’s scientific genius with real-world shrewdness, patiently waiting for him to accept what she’s offering. But Tesla’s too enmeshed in his own mind to see how much he needs her help.
Anne also critiques her ruthless, impossibly wealthy father and the way he interacts with others. At one point she asks (but doesn’t answer) the question, “Ideals cannot work hand in hand with capitalism. True or false?”
Industrialist George Westinghouse believes in Tesla as well. Unlike arrogant and self-absorbed Edison, Westinghouse sees Tesla’s genius and pays him handsomely for the right to use Tesla’s revolutionary technology. In the end, Tesla’s alternating current becomes the electrical standard, and the film suggests that Tesla’s visionary legacy is still illuminating the world today.
We hear that Tesla was the son of an Orthodox Serbian priest who was disappointed when Tesla defied him by pursuing an education and career in science.
Tesla tends to talk about the effect of technology and scientific discovery in philosophical, almost spiritual terms: “That motor will do the work of the world. It will set men free.”
There’s little that’s overtly religious here. That said, Tesla’s devotion to science—and his scientific worldview—at times sounds like religious devotion. And he repeatedly talks about the universe almost the way someone might talk about worshiping God. As the story unfolds, he begins to get more mystical about his sense of communication with the universe, again.
That said, at other moments, Tesla talks about the universe more mechanistically. At one point, he says, “The universe is a machine.” To which Anne replies, “No, we have an outside, an inside. We have wills and souls.” Elsewhere, Tesla says, “My brain is only a receiver. In the universe, then, is a core from which we receive all information, inspiration, knowledge and strength.” And this: “Every human being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe.”
We hear that a popular actress has a habit of sleeping in a coffin. When Tesla hears this, he says, “To prepare for the reality of death.”
At one point a man who appears to be wearing Indian garb and who has an Indian accent tells Tesla, “Chastity is a path to enlightenment. A great inventor should never marry. You realize this?”
We hear a conversation about the influence of our thoughts, and the influence of our thoughts on others. “We are what our thoughts have made us,” someone says. “So take care about what you think. Thoughts live. They travel far.”
Someone talks about her deceased mother’s spiritual views, saying that she believed in “a brighter, happier afterlife, one that never ends.”
Twice, we see classical paintings that depict nudity. One painting depicts a couple of women’s breasts, while painting shows a tangle of male bodies, with bare backsides and at least one man’s genitals visible (albeit not close up) in the painting.
As mentioned, we see Anne’s unrequited interest in Tesla throughout much of the film. At times, Tesla’s own lingering glances suggest that he returns her affection. But he’s never able to commit to a relationship with her, and in the end Anne (it’s suggested) apparently finds love with another woman. (We see some smiles and lingering touches as they work together.)
Another woman, French actress and international sensation Sarah Bernhardt, flirts with and repeatedly seeks out Tesla’s company. Again, there seems to be some mutual attraction, especially in a scene where Sarah walks toward him seductively in a revealing, semi-translucent dress. She invites him to see her perform, and she’s clearly disappointed when he doesn’t show up—because he’s working, as always.
There’s an odd debate over the question of whether alternating current or direct current would be more suitable to use to execute people. We see a dog hooked up to electrodes intended to kill it, and we hear a yelp as it’s killed (off camera)—a test before moving on to human subjects.
Edison seems to defer to alternating current for use in the first electric chair execution because, it’s suggested, he wanted the technology to be associated with death and danger. Indeed, the first electric chair execution goes badly, with two separate jolts required to kill a man who’d been convicted of murder. (We see him sitting in the chair with a bowl-like metal helmet afterward, his head smoking. And someone reads a graphic depiction of the event as well.)
We hear about several people who’ve died, including Tesla’s mother, Edison’s first wife and a young boy who drowns. We also hear about people perishing from cholera and tuberculosis.
One scene includes two uses of “g–d–n” and one use of “son of a b–ch.” The only other profanity in the film is one use of “h—uva.”
Characters drink wine and liquor socially at events throughout the film. A number of men smoke cigars in different scenes. We hear that a woman has died from a morphine overdose.
Edison, as is often the case in movies depicting his rivalry with Tesla and Westinghouse, is depicted as an arrogant, self-absorbed man. Someone says of Edison that he hardly sleeps, talks constantly and is “incapable of listening.”
Near Tesla’s conclusion, Anne Morgan observes (from the perspective of our current moment, which she does sporadically throughout the film), “Maybe the world we’re living in is a dream that Tesla dreamed first.”
It’s an interesting statement. Tesla did indeed imagine a world powered by cheap electricity, one that would be connected in its ability to communicate instantly and wirelessly. He imagined a world in which, as he described it, “all human relations are profoundly modified.” He believed deeply that such technological and scientific progress would alleviate suffering and perhaps even transform the nature of work.
Tesla’s vision has in significant ways come to pass. But it has not yielded the end of human suffering, as he’d so fervently hoped. And as the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but wonder how Nikola Tesla would perceive the interconnected world that he envisioned and helped make possible.
This brilliant scientist’s genius has impacted us all. And just as Tesla himself was, it seems, a man of restraint, Tesla admirably exercises quite a bit of restraint in the way it tells this influential immigrant’s remarkable story.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
