Photo Courtesy of 101 Studios
The lightbulb changed the world. The power it bottled and the know-how behind it brought modernity to life. The Current War concerns the battle between tech titans George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison—along with the visionary Nikola Tesla—that marked the emergence of the electric power grid in the late 19th century.
The Current War has a troubled history with rising and falling interest from prospective stars and directors. It sat for years in Hollywood purgatory, homeless after the collapse of Harvey Weinstein’s empire. Perhaps The Current War was never completed to anyone’s satisfaction. The film’s often animatronic acting and photoshopped settings might play well enough when streamed on a cellphone but the big screen does it no favors. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s visual jumble reveals nothing. Like a bad episode from the last seasons of “Peeky Blinders” or “Life on Mars,” it’s all quirk and little substance.
The wonky title refers to the conflict between Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch as another mad genius) and Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to control the future of electric power. The battle was fought in the lab as well as the board room and concerned the best method for generating and delivering current. Edison was fixated on DC, an impractical system requiring a power station every mile or so. Westinghouse favored Tesla (Nicholas Hoult), working with AC, capable of transmitting electricity through wires over long distances.
All three are seen as proud, driven men. The Current War delves a bit deeper into Edison than the other two, depicting him as a flawed idealist. Unwilling to admit that his power plan isn’t the future, Edison launches a war of lies claiming AC is unsafe and is drawn into inventing the electric chair, AC-powered, to demonstrate the dangers of the Westinghouse-Tesla plan.
The story begs for a better dramatization—one that depicts key players more substantially. The cast act as if they were given little time to comfortably fill the clothes of their characters. Everyone seems stamped from a mold.
Still, The Current War can’t help but make some interesting points. If Edison was the genius of organization and marketing—the Steve Jobs of his day—Tesla was the genius who saw beyond the near term and glimpsed the metaphysics behind technology. He imagined harnessing the energy of Niagara Falls and a world connected without wires. Edison and Westinghouse became millionaires while Tesla died poor and forgotten until recent years when, his insights unearthed, he was finally recognized. Edison and Westinghouse were successful, can-do Americans of their day. Tesla was the immigrant from the future.
