In moviemaking, ambition and indulgence often go hand-in-hand. And that can be a double-edged sword. Case in point: legendary writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project Megalopolis.
Set in the fictional city of New Rome, Megalopolis is the story of two political rivals. One is the current mayor, Frank Cicero (Better Call Saul, Giancarlo Esposito), who wants to preserve the way of life of the people of his city. The other is a visionary architect named Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver from Marriage Story) who has a more utopian vision for the future of the city. In between them is Cicero’s daughter and Cesar’s lover, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones), who is forced to mediate the power struggle.
Megalopolis was, and is, a labor of love for Francis Ford Coppola. He began developing it back in the early eighties, but the finished script feels very much like a product of our current times. The main character names are not coincidental – it’s a sprawling Roman epic that loosely parallels the Catilinarian Conspiracy and all of the backstabbing and intrigue that came with it. But Megalopolis is also very modern feeling, drawing influences from everything from early science fiction and Shakespeare to contemporary blockbusters and recent politics.
From a technical standpoint, Megalopolis is a masterpiece. It’s a visual feast, full of grandiose sets and lavish costumes, that just begs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. The city of New Rome, both Cicero’s reality of it and Cesar’s fantasy, are beautifully crafted and painstakingly created. Most of the characters are rich and upper class, and the wild, eccentric costuming reflects that. There’s even a scene where a young pop star (played by viral sensation Grace VanderWaal) wears a dress that can be seen through. Not seen through as in transparent, seen through as in what is behind her can be seen on the dress.
Story-wise, Megalopolis is all over the place. There are seemingly dozens of threads to follow, and while they do all connect in some way, it’s a lot to take in and process. The shifting alliances and shady practices aren’t tough to follow, but things do get fairly messy at times. This is all part of Coppola’s theater of the absurd – the plot is just as abstract as the set pieces. Heck, there are characters in this movie named Wow Platinum and Vesta Sweetwater. It’s meant to be somewhat ridiculous.
And while we’re on the subject of characters, the cast in Megalopolis is absolutely worth discussing. While Driver, Esposito, and Emmanuel get most of the screen time, a movie as large as this wouldn’t be complete without a standout ensemble, and Coppola can assemble talent like no one else. Shia LeBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight, and Talia Shire all have important supporting roles, and the bit players include names like Dustin Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney, Kathryn Hunter, and Balthazar Getty. This is a cast that, frankly, only someone like Francis Ford Coppola could put together.
Which brings us back to the ambition and indulgence of the film. There is no question that Megalopolis is about as ambitious of a movie as one is bound to find. That’ll happen when a movie is 40 years in the making. It’s a larger-than-life film, like a superhero movie without any action scenes. Cesar even has a superpower that allows him to stop time. Again, a visual feast.
The indulgence comes into play with the storytelling. The concepts of the film have been rewritten and redeveloped so many times, with all of this rewriting and redeveloping happening while major American events like 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic are going on. There are thinly veiled metaphors and analogies all over the place, and while it’s easy to see the film is depicting the crumbling of an empire, it feels like the last forty years of American History crammed into a two hour and fifteen-minute movie. Which, to his credit, Coppola could have easily made longer, but why? He more than gets his point across, and probably could have done it in less time. But that wouldn’t have allowed him as much indulgence.
See Megalopolis. See it on a big screen with a pumping sound system. It’s a finely crafted multi-media machine of a movie. Which we should all expect from a filmmaker like Coppola when he takes this long to cook it. But remember – it’s as much prophecy as it is entertainment. And take it as such.
GRADE: B-
MPAA Rating: R for language, drug use, nudity, sexual content, and some violence
Release Date: September 27, 2024
Running Time: 2 hours 18 minutes
Studio: Lionsgate
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