• Whatever production or marketing issues may have befallen The Current War (it was largely shelved in 2017 after the Weinstein scandal and fallout)—the resulting work emerges as one of the best 15-20 films or so of 2017.
  • It isn’t a biopic about Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch), Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), or Tesla (Nicholas Hoult)—but a story about their feud—sort of playing out like the newspaper wars of Samuel Fuller’s Park Row or, the one-upmanship of The Prestige (which not only also has Tesla in the film but a similarly impressive shot of the lights in in a field (which detractors of The Current War may point out))

when you have a story about Tesla and this shot- it is hard not to recall Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige

  • Alfonso Gomez-Rejon made Me and Earl and the Dying Girl in 2015 which by a hair landed in the archives in 2015- but it wasn’t one of those films that make you eager for the director’s next film. The Current War far surpasses the reviews of the film (mediocre) and anything hints of an auteur at work in Me and Earl
  • Gomez-Rejon boldly collaborates with gifted cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Chan-wook Park’s regular collaborator including Oldboy and The Handmaiden) and forgotten production designer Jan Roelfs (Greenaway’s longtime collaborator who worked on films like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, The Baby of Macon, and Orlando). The work here from both will blow your hair back.

Gomez-Rejon boldly collaborates with gifted cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Chan-wook Park’s regular collaborator including Oldboy and The Handmaiden) and forgotten production designer Jan Roelfs (Greenaway’s longtime collaborator who worked on films like The Cook, The Thief, His Wifev& Her Lover, The Baby of Macon, and Orlando). The work here from both will blow your hair back.

  • The artistic shot choices by Gomez-Rejon start from the beginning with the opening whiteout, then the second shot is the camera floating alongside the train at night and it really doesn’t subside for the 102-minute running time even if your jaw never quite drops
  • 20-25 magnificent overhead shots, low angle shots, wide angle compositions abound as well.  There’s one of Pope and Westinghouse in a lounge after billiards, another of the JP Morgan character and his meeting with Westinghouse—stunning

20-25 magnificent overhead shots, low angle shots, wide angle compositions abound as well

  • The narrative moves briskly with sharp dialogue and big speech-making performances from the veteran cast- perhaps a half-step behind the work in The Imitation Game from Cumberbatch or Take Shelter from Shannon
  • Recommend but not quite in the top 10 of 2017