Ethan Hawke, with somber countenance and a heavy mustache, plays Tesla as a restless soul burdened by genius and haunted by melancholy. But the character, in Hawke’s quietly magnetic performance, is neither a heroic visionary nor a tragic hero. Tesla lives mainly inside his own head, and “Tesla” offers an intriguing and sometimes puzzling excursion into the brain of its maker. The elliptical story is given a crucial spark of conflict — and wit — by the frenemyship between Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and Tesla. In the director’s wonderful “Hamlet” (2000), Hawke played the gloomy title character, while MacLachlan was a disarmingly human Claudius, his stepfather and nemesis.

Source: New York Times August 19, 2020 23:26 UTC