Synopsis
Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.
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Cast
- Benedict CumberbatchThomas Edison
- Michael ShannonGeorge Westinghouse
- Nicholas HoultNikola Tesla
- Katherine WaterstonMarguerite Westinghouse
- Tom HollandSamuel Insull
- Matthew MacfadyenJ.P. Morgan
- Tuppence MiddletonMary Edison
- Stanley TownsendFranklin Pope
- Damien MolonyBourke Cockran
- Conor MacNeillWilliam Kemmler
Recommendations
- 75
Movie Nation
With this “Director’s Cut,” Gomez-Rejon and his editors have saved a witty, well-acted and gorgeous-looking movie and given it the heart, history and intellectual heft it needed to come off. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
The Current War is even better than it has to be. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung give the film a swooping elegance, so that shots that start as close-ups gracefully glide into medium shots, and medium shots give way to vistas. The camera is always moving in a way that suggests grace and flow. - 71
The Verge
Even if The Current War is soft around the edges and a little soggy in the middle, there’s still something appreciably sparky at its core. As overstuffed and frenetic as the film is, in its best moments, The Current War manages to make an everyday utility seem just as magical as it did 120 years ago. - 63
Chicago Tribune
I never saw the earlier version. This one remains a bit of a mess but a pretty interesting one, as well as one of the few films this year deserving (in both admirable and dissatisfying ways) of the adjective “instructive.” - 60
Empire
A stylish portrayal of a literal power struggle based on truly interesting historical figures and events. But it tries to take in too much in too little time, when all it needed was to centre on Edison and Westinghouse. - 60
CineVue
The Current War feels like a history lesson with interesting visuals, rather than a compelling, fully-realised historical drama. - 58
The A.V. Club
The Current War employs actors capable of their own eccentric stylizations, and gives them very little leeway to make the material their own. Gomez-Rejon keeps snatching it back with every offbeat composition idea he can muster. - 50
Washington Post
The main problem, despite committed and at times vivid performances by the three main actors — and a mostly perfunctory supporting appearance by Tom Holland as Edison’s loyal assistant Samuel Insull — is the sheer amount of information that the movie tries to convey.
