The Current War (2018)
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.
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What critics say influenced The Current War
A lifeless period drama about the rivalry between two of America’s greatest geniuses, Gomez-Rejon’s lavish third feature unfolds like a more historically accurate riff on “The Prestige,” albeit one lacking even a trace amount of magic (Nikola Tesla factors in, however, and Nicholas Hoult’s performance pays tribute to David Bowie).
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s long-delayed follow-up to Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is appealingly set during a time where, as in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (which feels like a distant cousin to this film), scientific progress must have felt like reality-transforming sorcery.
A heap of bad history, the movie rewrites the one-sided feud between the early electric power moguls Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) into a clumsy public-domain mockbuster of The Prestige ; you can almost hear director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon ( Me And Earl And The Dying Girl ) trying to slap himself awake as he inserts overhead shots, canted angles, zooms, and wide-angle Tom Hooper-isms into every scene.
The arrival of Hoult's ( Tolkien ) futurist Nikola Tesla enlivens proceedings (though he's not a patch on David Bowie's turn as the same man in The Prestige ), but Michael Mitnick's (Vinyl) stodgy script telegraphs a predictable climatic showdown, as the central pair compete to illuminate the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.
Some set pieces were obviously inspired by Christopher Nolan’s far more mysterious and far superior 2006 drama of similar vein The Prestige , including an introverted Nikola Tesla, albeit of inferior panache and impact.
Unlike The Prestige , which gave an eerily excellent David Bowie a suitably bizarre sub-plot in which to live, The Current War’s Tesla feels out of place.
In terms of visual style, this is the most mature work that Faris and Dayton—who previously made Little Miss Sunshine and Ruby Sparks —have produced; the mostly effortless use of long lenses, doorways, mirrors, silhouettes, and big empty spaces makes up for some of the broader instincts of the script.
In terms of visual style, this is the most mature work that Faris and Dayton—who previously made Little Miss Sunshine and Ruby Sparks —have produced; the mostly effortless use of long lenses, doorways, mirrors, silhouettes, and big empty spaces makes up for some of the broader instincts of the script.
Our full-length review of Mother! (Grade: B+) will come later; suffice it to say that it’s the most irrational piece of filmmaking that Darren Aronofsky has produced since his black-and-white debut, Pi .