Tesla

Tesla (2020) is an experimental biographical drama directed by Michael Almereyda — watch it online on iFILM. Ethan Hawke plays Nikola Tesla not as a triumphant visionary but as a man out of step with the world around him, pursuing a system of wireless energy that no one around him could quite finance or believe in. Kyle MacLachlan plays Thomas Edison with the easy authority of someone who always knows the market value of an idea.

The film breaks with biopic convention deliberately. Anachronisms appear without apology, characters address the camera, and the narrative skips around rather than marching through milestones. What Almereyda is after is loneliness — the particular kind that comes from being right too early, from owing money to backers who don't understand what they've funded, from a project at Wardenclyffe that collapsed before it could prove anything.

Eve Hewson narrates as Anne Morgan, providing a wry outside eye on a man who was genuinely difficult to help. Hawke does most of his work through restraint. The result is stranger and more honest than most films about genius bother to be. Stream Tesla (2020) on iFILM.