The Current War Fails to Sizzle

 

 

 

THE CURRENT WAR (2017/19)

Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejan

101 Studios, 107 minutes, PG-13

★★ 1/2

 

The Current War depicts the late 19^th century race between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to provide electricity to American businesses and homes. Its route to North American cinemas was, shall we say, short-circuited. It was released in Britain in 2017, and was slated for distribution here by Harvey Weinstein Productions. Unless you’ve been napping on the dark side of the moon, you know why that plan ran into trouble. It took some time before 101 Studios acquired distribution rights, though it’s arguable whether it was worth the effort.

 

Without getting all geeky about it, the gist of the matter was which system was most feasible, Edison’s Direct Current or Westinghouse’s Alternating Current. Edison was first to the table and made money on installing DC for businesses, but his system required a lot of machinery and had a very short coverage area. He also made the boneheaded maneuver of hiring a bright young immigrant, Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Holt) to work for him. Tesla was under the impression that Edison would bankroll some of his innovations, whereas Edison saw him as just another hireling whose main job was to stroke his ego and enhance his reputation as a genius. Tesla eventually quit and took his talents to Westinghouse, who also treated him shabbily. As we know, however, Westinghouse’s AC won the day, nearly bankrupted Edison in the process, delayed Tesla’s acclaim, and relied upon banker/investor J. P. Morgan (Matthew Macfadyen) to bankroll it. Guess who got a massive share of the profits.

 

There’s not inherently unique about Gilded Age magnates battling or cheating one another, so director Alfronso Gomez-Rejan tried to interject tension wherever he could, though most of the movie’s dramatic moments call out for the qualifier “melo.” The women of the film­–Westinghouse’s wife Marguerite (Katherine Wilkerson) and Edison’s first wife Mary (Tuppence Middleton)–are there to cheer on their men folk or, in Marguerite’s case, to encourage ruthlessness. (Yes, this is another film in which women are appendages.) Gomez-Rejan develops the relationship between the respective collaborators of Edison and Westinghouse–Samuel Insull (Tom Holland) and Franklin Pope (Stanley Townshend)–better than those of their wives. Loyalties are tested and shifted and details are added, such as the first criminal electrocution (of William Kemmler) and the lighting of the 1886 World’s Fair. These ostensibly add color to Michael Mitnick’s script, but they come off more as padding than exposition.

 

There is a tangible sense that this entire project sounded better in the planning stage than it turned out in the studio. I am generally a Cumberbatch fan, but the problems begin with him. He doesn’t look a thing like Edison and though the latter was known for being difficult, pigheaded, and driven, his intensity was of a different quality than Cumberbatch’s, which is geared more toward nervous energy leavened with snark. To up the sense of competition, the film casts Edison as the villain, Tesla as a victim, and Westinghouse as sympathetic. That’s all very neat, but not very accurate.

 

Films “inspired by” real events often take liberties, so one might be tempted to dismiss my previous critique. I would as well, had I been drawn in better. The Current War isn’t terrible, just bland. If you will, the major problem with The Current War is that it simply doesn’t spark.

 

Rob Weir