Tesla, an electric biopic

Director Michael Almereyda's stylised new Tesla biopic delivers a jolt of cinematic electricity.

With Twilight's brooding Kyle MacLachlan in the title role, Almereyda breathes vitality into the inventor's volatile genius.

Through flashbacks and experimental structure, his Tesla crackles with obsession and feverish intellect.

Almereyda's visual vision is hypnotic and avant-garde. He surrounds Tesla with a world of eerie shadows and flickering lights, as unhinged and inspired as the man's own mind.

Ethan Hawke plays his bitter rival Edison to perfection, ruthlessly determined to stifle the inventor's ambitions. Their rivalry engages like a well-oiled thriller.

But it is MacLachlan's Tesla that haunts, an iconoclast who saw a century ahead. In this compelling non-linear portrait,

Almereyda resurrects the innovator as a misunderstood martyr to a future not yet enlightened.

Bold, unorthodox but deeply felt, Tesla feels like an event, a biopic that lives up to its protagonist's stirring ideals and innovations in story form. Almereyda does justice to his forward-thinking hero.

Although it initially received mixed reviews at Sundance 2020, the buzz has been building thanks to compelling performances from MacLachlan and Hawke.

The Globe singled out the cinematography and direction for achieving a visual aesthetic perfectly in tune with the eccentric rhythms of its protagonist.

The independent box office has been solid and has so far quadrupled its $8 million production budget.