Over the last few years, Ethan Hawke has become one of Hollywood’s most reliable leading men. However, he is badly miscast as the titular visionary scientist in Michael Almereyda’s biopic, Tesla. Also, coming so soon after last year’s The Current War, this feels like an unnecessary retread of very familiar ground. That film had its dull patches but its performances were much better, and it had a much more coherent screenplay.
Almereyda tries to inject some interest with gimmicky touches like having characters break the 4th wall to talk about googling subjects and Tesla breaking into a rendition of a Tears for Fears song, but those do not work at all.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
We are now well into October so streaming services are full of horror films. But some of the scariest scenes and characters I have seen this year are in Yes, God, Yes. 16 year old Alice (Natalia Dyer) goes to a strict Catholic school. Just as the innocent girl starts to discover masturbation and become curious about boys, she goes on a religious retreat with her classmates. The level of religious indoctrination and intolerance on show from the hypocritical priest leading the group to the zombie like football star that Alice falls for is stomach churning.
Dyer captures the naïve curiosity of Alice really well and Susan Blackwell supplies an excellent cameo as a bar owner who talks more sense than all of Alice’s teachers and religious leaders combined. Writer/director Karen Maine shows just how bigoted and damaging forcing beliefs onto others can be. She brings just enough light to what could have been a depressing story.
Rating: 8 out of 10