Movie Review: Tesla (2020)

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One of the most difficult things to convey onscreen is human thought, particularly what happens when an epiphany washes over us. We do, of course, have an accepted shorthand for these moments in animation. Most commonly depicted by the image of a lightbulb going off above a character's head, we watch as their eyes widen, perhaps a finger is raised, and then they run to go put their ideas into motion. Taken together, these actions are easily understood; we know we've witnessed intellectual serendipity. 

And while we've all seen actors attempt to externalize the internal onscreen – usually with the camera closing in on their faces before pulling back to see them start working on a new, grand opus – there are only a precious few actors who we routinely believe we are seeing think in character. It's a short list, to be sure, but one man who is definitely on it is Ethan Hawke.

One of those actors whom you believe that – for both good and bad, depending upon the project – has the soul of a philosopher, a musician, and an inventor, we've seen Hawke triumph when he collaborates with a filmmaker who knows how to "play" him like Chet Baker played his trumpet . . . or Hawke played Baker playing his trumpet in Robert Budreau's "Born to Be Blue."

Still, while he's worked so well with iconoclastic writer-director Michael Almereyda in the past – most notably on his controversial "Hamlet" adaptation in 2000 – their latest effort "Tesla" feels more like a jam session played on rusty instruments by an out-of-practice jazz band than it does the smooth, rich, wrap you in velvet sound of musicians who are perfectly in sync. 

It's a damn shame, too, because if anybody knows how to bring a lightbulb moment to life, it's Hawke, so when it was announced that he was going to be playing a man who literally played with electricity, expectations for "Tesla" were set unbelievably high.

The first time we see Nikola Tesla (Hawke) in Almereyda's unconventional biopic, he is wobbling around on roller skates, which is an apt metaphor for the film overall. Awkwardly trying to keep his balance in formal wear, Tesla skates along with his friend, the daughter of J.P. Morgan, Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), who wishes she could be so much more to the shy inventor. So undone by the sight of pearls on a woman's neck because it reminds him of his mother back in Serbia, (who, for all intents and purposes is the only woman he ever loved), their relationship is doomed long before he ever put on those skates.

Wedded to his pursuits and only very casually intrigued by women from a platonic perspective, Tesla puts everything he has into his work with alternating currents – a practice which alienates his first big American employer, Thomas Edison (a sublime Kyle MacLachlan) – before he eventually finds a patron and financial champion in George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan).

Coming off the heels of Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's underrated 2017 film "The Current War," which chronicled the same three figures (with Nicholas Hoult, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Michael Shannon playing Tesla, Edison, and Westinghouse respectively) and was finally released to little fanfare last year, I was somewhat familiar with "Tesla"'s turn-of-the-century electrical terrain.

And while the first act of the film is very engaging – especially with a surprisingly vulnerable turn by MacLachlan and moving supporting work by Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Tesla's best friend from overseas, the hard-working but creatively stymied Anital Szigeti – it's a bad sign when your film happens to be called "Tesla" and the least compelling character in the film is also named Tesla.

As subdued as he is single-minded in his quest, Nikola Tesla is on paper, at least, a perfect character for Ethan Hawke. A highly verbal actor, Hawke sometimes gives his most affecting performances when he's limited by how much he can say since it's in such a stark contrast to his most famous onscreen alter-ego as Jesse Wallace in Richard Linklater's "Before" trilogy. 

Yet whereas Paul Schrader knew exactly how to balance the pathos and conflict just below his reverend's collar in "First Reformed," he flounders in this film so much that he nearly blends in with the scenery. And in "Tesla" this is a feat in and of itself considering that, in paying homage to Derek Jarman's minimalist production design in "Edward II" (and other films) and Denmark's Dogme 95 filmmakers, "Tesla" frequently opts for basic projected backdrops you might find surfing the web instead of artfully decorated spaces.

An experimental biopic that (shockingly) isn't weird enough to break any new ground, save for a truly puzzling performance by Hawke as Tesla of the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" toward the end of the movie – which made me wonder why we hadn't seen that level of innovation before – Almereyda's film is an overall yawn.

Struggling to hold our attention as it drones on and away from Edison, who is the most fascinating figure in the film, I found myself fighting to stay awake even though I watched it the very first thing in the morning. A long-gestating passion project from the director, who penned his earliest version of the script in the early 1980s, regrettably the 2020 filmed version of "Tesla" is sorely lacking the same level of youthful enthusiasm that Almereyda had for it nearly forty years ago.

The first onscreen reunion of MacLachlan and Hawke since they played Claudius and Hamlet in Almereyda's 2000 film, the two crackle with electricity in the few scenes they share here, whether they're sparring verbally or with ice cream cones (don't ask). And while it's always hard to showcase creative thought, when it comes right down to it, no matter how hard Almereyda tries to flick the switch for Hawke in "Tesla," this is one bulb that never lights up.


Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: Giant Little Ones (2018)

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Jocks in the locker room, beautiful girls in the halls, a party while mom's away, and fights between friends.

Centered on popular high school swimmers Franky Winter (Josh Wiggins) and Ballas Kohl (Darren Mann) — two lifelong friends growing up in Ontario who have a falling out after a confusing drunken encounter on one's seventeenth birthday — at first glance, writer-director Kyle Behrman's Giant Little Ones is everything we've come to expect in a coming-of-age teen movie.

But, unafraid of silence and ambiguity and filled with hypnotic, unhurried takes which invite us to take a moment and figuratively breathe the same air that the characters do, it doesn't take us long to realize that there's so much more going on beneath the surface of this heartfelt and at times harrowing portrait of teenage sexuality than we might have imagined going in.

Refusing to pin a label on any of its main characters — besides the film's concerned parents who, played by Kyle McLachlan and Maria Bello are going through existential crises of their own — Kyle Behrman's intelligent, understated sleeper will resonate with those who've had enough of Hollywood's stereotypical whip smart, worldly teens with all the answers and are instead searching for something real.

With the artistry of a Sofia Coppola picture and potent performances by its ensemble cast, the character driven Giant is anchored by the staggering turns of leads Josh Wiggins and Darren Mann as two conflicted friends who go from brothers to enemies practically overnight, along with a moving performance by Taylor Hickson as a girl who finds herself unexpectedly caught in the middle.

Likewise, it's the type of film that's so thoughtfully conceived that even its peripheral characters feel just as fascinating and fully realized as the two at the heart of the endeavor. Intended as a film version of a pop song, Giant Little Ones is a small, tenderly crafted drama that's not only sure to stick with you but bound to take up a great space in your heart.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Netflix Movie Review: High Flying Bird (2019)

Arriving on Netflix: 
Feb. 8

The way Bill Duke's community basketball coach sees it, "you either care all the way or you don't care at all, man," and it only takes a few minutes of screen time for us to realize that, when it comes to looking out for his clients during an NBA lockout, André Holland's basketball agent Ray is a man who cares all the way.

Trying to save his lottery pick player Erick (Melvin Gregg) from bankruptcy and himself from unemployment, Ray spends a majority of Steven Soderbergh's ninety minute movie in motion. Talking at the speed of a playoffs game, over the course of a few fateful days, Ray maneuvers between the labor dispute's offense and defense.

A subversive look at "the game on top of the game" of basketball but without any court action in sight, the film, written by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) and modeled on Sweet Smell of Success, raises valid, urgent questions about the commoditization of predominantly black athletes by white owners.

Making moves to redistribute the balance of power, money, and control back into the hands of the players alongside his brainy, ambitious assistant Sam (a terrific Zazie Beetz), in High Flying Bird, we get the chance to go behind the curtain of what Ray dubs "the sexiest sport."

Using an outsider's perspective to explore new terrain in an unexpected way, Soderbergh's bold decision to take basketball itself out of the equation gives us a closer look at what we're really seeing when we watch a game on TV.

One of our most curious filmmakers, especially given the scope and objectivity of his character driven films, it's safe to say that had he not entered the film industry, Steven Soderbergh would have made one hell of an investigative reporter.

A unique mix of vintage and modern Soderbergh filmmaking techniques, although Bird was shot on an iPhone (like his recent underrated thriller Unsane), Bird's frames are sharper and more polished, perhaps owing as much to advances in technology as the film's smoother, less frantic tone and approach.

Comprised of the same set-up of two people in a room talking that he says made his name thirty years ago in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the end result is a fascinating blend of theater, journalism, and cinéma vérité brought to life with verve and skill by its top-notch cast in just three weeks.

Best appreciated the second time around when we're better able to digest McCraney's gorgeously penned, theatrical monologues which are so full of meaning that they occasionally feel too big for the screen, Bird also makes for an ideal double feature with the 1957 classic Sweet Smell of Success.

Used by Soderbergh as a template for the film when he was first developing it on the set of The Knick alongside Holland, even without Success, Bird is sure to inspire its fair share of think pieces and make for engaging post-film discussion regardless.

Although those looking for a traditional sports movie will be disappointed by its lack of well, sports, those willing to keep an open mind might be surprised to discover that, whether it’s about sports or film, much like Ray (or McCraney or Soderbergh for that matter), they too "care all the way."

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008)

Director: Sanaa Hamri

Predictably, unlike the crowded screenings for The Dark Knight or Swing Vote, when it came to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, the reserved press section had enough vacancies that the seats next to mine were released rather quickly. Soon enough, a kind, educated couple and their adorable, roughly nine-year-old aspiring blogger/film critic daughter became my impromptu movie buddies. Surprised to see such a young face amidst a theatre filled with halter top-wearing, high-heeled shoe adorned teenage girls who all looked like they’d mistaken the screening for a Gossip Girl audition or a Miley Cyrus concert, I eagerly chatted with the amiable family.

Quickly I learned that their daughter was not only the biggest fan of The Sisterhood but had also — unlike this reviewer whose schedule prevented proper preparation — recently watched the original 2005 film a few times earlier in the week to double check where the director Ken Kwapis had bookmarked the lives of Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Lena (Alexis Bledel), Carmen (America Ferrera), and Bridget (Blake Lively). While Kwapis didn’t return for the Sisterhood reunion, Warner Brothers made an excellent choice in bringing in the talented Sanaa Hamri, who is not only a female director and thus more in tune with memories of female post-adolescent identity crises but also one whose wonderfully uplifting and overlooked romantic comedy Something New was one of the best entries into the genre over the last few years.

Although unaware of any changes behind the scenes, the contagious enthusiasm expressed by my new young seatmate made me recall just how surprisingly good the first movie had been. Given its intelligence, humor, warmth, and compassion, it put to shame all of the forced women’s bonding films such as the anti-feminist Georgia Rule and stereotypical Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

Additionally, the fact that a girl that young could view the film speaks volumes for its family friendly quality. And although both the original and especially the sequel do contain some issues that make the most of its PG-13 rating, the filmmakers and screenwriter Elizabeth Chandler (taking plots from numerous titles in the series by Ann Brashares) ensure that it’s all handled with taste. Besides, luckily it appeared that my seatmate seemed to have the ideal parents with whom she could consult were there any lingering concerns she wanted to discuss after the film. Therefore it was joyous to see parents and children both enjoying a film together and appreciating aspects of it on different levels as some jokes played better to males in the audience than females and others struck a chord with varying generations.

Catching up with The Sisterhood’s foursome after their first year of college, we find them all dealing with that instantly relatable feeling of trying to reconcile the concerns and friendships of their youth with their new busy lives studying and living in various places. As those who are of a certain age are readily aware, it’s a tough transitional time where friendships are put to the test but the girls all continue loyally shipping the worn pair of blue jeans to each other in the hopes they will slide not only into the denim but the miraculous good fortune the jeans are purported to inspire. However, predictably we learn that over the previous freshman year, The Sisterhood has started to drift, barely e-mailing one another with some beginning to view their traditional ceremony at the beginning of the summer as “forced” rather than the spontaneous and exciting ritual they’d begun in the original film.



Set over the course of another fateful summer and unfortunately given little in the way of shared screen time, we follow the adventurous events of each girl’s life in Chandler’s jam-packed script. In trying to be all things to all people, the screenplay grew in both complexity and length but unfortunately not in quality, most likely similar to those infamous, unhygienic jeans which have barely survived after too many trips through the washing machine along with racking up the frequent flyer miles from globe-trotting via FedEx. While overall, the film is so warm and comforting that it reminds one of a teddy bear, Sisterhood 2 is so overstuffed with plot points and introduces too many useless new characters that it is bursting at the seams and leaking stuffing and plot threads throughout.

Before the smash success of Ferrera’s Ugly Betty made her the marquee name of the sequel, the former film’s biggest “name” star, Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel, reprises her role as the ultra-feminine, sweet-natured, sketch-happy Lena. Thrown for a heartbreaking loop early on, Lena’s on again/off again relationship with Kostas (Michael Rady) is jeopardized with some shocking news. Still reeling from the revelation about the man she assumed was her soul mate, she continues studying at the Rhode Island School of Design where her spirits are lifted when the possibility of a new love literally unfolds before her eyes in the form of Leo (Jesse Williams), a handsome fellow art student who moonlights as a nude model in exchange for studio time.

Of course, this being a family film marketed for tweens and teens, the nudity is implied rather than overt but Bledel charms in an early scene as she stumbles, fidgets, blushes and reminds us of the socially awkward Rory Gilmore we used to know and love. Unfortunately, soon enough the lackluster plotline makes her character just go through the motions until Lena’s problems are wrapped up in a rather forced and ludicrous conclusion in Greece that actually felt like the segment had been added in during the filming stage to bring the gang back for one last hurrah.

While it’s Ferrera who is drawing the most critical praise for her return as Carmen, the insecure and often overlooked bright young woman feeling left out as both her family and friends have proceeded to move on with their lives, Carmen clings to her youth and the pants of The Sisterhood as if they were a baby blanket. After spending an unenthusiastic year at Yale School of Drama working as a tech helping the school’s star diva Julia (Rachel Nichols) make quick changes and exits, she accompanies Julia to a theatre program in Vermont.

Under the direction of pompous Kyle MacLachlan (visibly loving his clichéd role) and catching the eye of British hottie Ian (Tom Wisdom), Carmen discovers her inner actress and finally earns her own chance to shine after being cast in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. Despite Ferrera’s talents which are best displayed with her stellar work in independent films like Real Women Have Curves and her award-winning television series, she never fully convinces us this time around in her Shakespearean debut. In this case, I’m wondering if it’s possibly due to Hamri’s direction or Ferrera’s own intuition as “Carmen”. By playing Shakespeare with an incessant exclamation point, it always felt like a forced performance (or the old warning of an actor “acting”), thereby taking away from Carmen’s storyline, which admittedly consisted of a recycled All About Eve meets 42nd Street subplot.

The film’s strongest plot surrounds Blake Lively’s Bridget who returns from playing soccer at Brown University to the still overly quiet, sad home where she and her father (played by the father of the actress, Ernie Lively) struggle to converse, still equally haunted by Bridget’s mother’s suicide. While preparing for an archeological dig in Turkey led by House of Sand and Fog actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bridget stumbles upon a box filled with cards and letters from her estranged grandmother Greta (Blythe Danner). Midway through the Turkish adventure, she inevitably makes the decision that her own past is more urgent to dig up and goes to visit her feisty grandmother.

While their scenes are filled with emotional potential, especially with the pitch-perfect casting of Blythe Danner who manages to give Blake Lively more to do than simply pout and sigh like her Gossip Girl character Serena, the effect is overly rushed and too much time is spent trying to juggle the other, less interesting plots. However, in retrospect, the other characters’ arcs may have been put on the front burner since Bridget’s is the only one that doesn’t involve romance and Warner Brothers most likely wanted to ensure the teen viewers had enough chances to swoon at the attractive male stars in Lena, Tibby, and Carmen’s storylines.

In my humble opinion, the best actress of the group is Joan of Arcadia's Amber Tamblyn as the wisecracking, cynical, aspiring filmmaker Tibby (a more likable version of Thora Birch’s Enid from Ghost World) and while she was given an admittedly contrived plotline in the first Sisterhood, it was also one of the film’s most moving storylines. This time around, despite being tossed one Juno-like plot device which Tamblyn plays to masterful comedic effect, she’s wasted here and in some scenes it feels like she’s only set to enter just to deliver a well-written, witty line (for proof, just check out the film’s trailer). Unfortunately, aside from a superb build-up to a conflict that never fully materializes in a way that’s beneficial to the script other than to end up as an obstacle to romantic happiness with her equally hip beau Brian (Leonardo Nam), we get far too much Carmen playing Shakespeare than we’d like.

While fans of the original are sure to enjoy it, the film ends on an unintentionally hilarious note via a ridiculously spontaneous journey to Greece to find the pants that the girls fear have been the only thing keeping them together. But despite Sisterhood 2's many, many flaws and the way characters and stories are just inserted for distraction much like the beadwork, ink, and ornaments on their famous jeans, it’s still quite a welcome sight to see a film that can play to audiences of all ages. Not to mention, the bonus that it’s a feature film which portrays young women as intelligent and thoughtful as opposed to the media-perpetuated cliché they’re simply vacuous beings all just angling for credit cards and trips to the mall.

Admittedly, box-office wise, it’s unfortunate that it’s playing opposite the Summer Olympics; however, given the elevated celebrity of Lively and Ferrera, it’s sure to garner more ticket sales than the original film did. Although, via the advice of my new young acquaintance whom we will probably see reviewing on the world wide web someday, I’d urge prospective audience members to check out the first Sisterhood before they journey to the theatre so they can see how surprisingly good a stereotypical “chick flick” can be.