There has been much talk in recent years about the importance and value of “the theatrical experience.” If there is one thing that Francis Ford Coppola’s work Megalopolis does the right thing, reminding us that there is nothing like the cinematic experience, especially when watching one of the most unique pieces of cinema in recent years.
Release date: September 27, 2024
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Written by: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza and Shia LeBeouf
Classification: Rated R for sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence.
Duration: 138 minutes
FURTHER: Megalopolis: What we know about Francis Ford Coppola's star-studded epic
Francis Ford Coppola has been working on Megalopolis Over the better part of four decades, there were several attempts to get it made, but finding a studio willing to produce it proved a challenge. Eventually, after selling off a portion of his wine empire, Coppola financed the film himself and now the epic Megalopolis It's here and it's an incredible film. It tests boundaries and challenges perceptions. It questions the present and the future. It's a film about incredible ambition told with incredible ambition.
Megalopolis', subtitled A fable, It takes a look at modern-day America and infuses it with elements of the Roman Republic. Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) runs the city of New Rome, a thinly veiled New York that both is and isn’t America (it’s confusing and not particularly important). He’s in conflict with Caesar Catherine (Adam Driver), the leader of the Design Authority, who is in the process of remaking the city using a revolutionary new material discovered by Catherine, the Megalon.
Caesar sees the potential to create a utopia out of the decaying city. Cicero sees the work as dangerous to the people as they are today. Matters become even more complicated when Cicero's daughter Julie (Nathalie Emmanuel) begins a relationship with Caesar.
I'm afraid that in trying to summarize the plot of Megalopolis I may have given readers the impression that Megalopolis has… a plot. You might think that there is a story being told here. That is technically true, but it needs to be said up front. The Megalopolis The story can be difficult to follow mainly because the film doesn't care that much about the story being told.
Megalopolis It is a metaphor. Its purpose is to compare the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire with modern American society, which Coppola clearly sees as heading down the same path. The character names, sets and costumes, which are not at all subtle, serve to reinforce the idea of this metaphor. It is much more important than the drama of the characters being told, so when the two come into conflict, which happens frequently, the metaphor takes priority.
This hinders the story in many ways. In a movie filled with characters, many of them don't go anywhere. Scenes introduce ideas that seem like they'll come into play later, but they just don't. Are you curious about this strange new element called Megalon and what it is or why it matters? Sorry, that will never be addressed, for the simple reason that, again, it doesn't really matter.
Adam Driver and the rest of the cast are committed to the show.
Even with a running time of almost two and a half hours, Megalopolis It has a lot to cover and everything moves so fast that you barely have time to take in one scene before the next one flies by. It's loud and brash and never stops.
But what Megalopolis The film loses in narrative what it tries to make up for in visual spectacle, and it does so in remarkable fashion. It's an incredible looking film. Shot largely on green screens, the film embraces the unreality of it all rather than trying to make things look photorealistic, setting the scenes against incredible and sometimes impossible backdrops.
The separation from reality extends to the characters. Adam Driver's first major scene includes him reciting Village Overall, and if the entire script had been written in iambic pentameter, it would have fit. None of any character's dialogue seems natural in the slightest, but if it were, it would feel totally out of place in the world of New Rome with its massive excesses.
The greatest strength of Megalopolis The cast is very interesting. It's clear that each and every one of them fully committed to the absolutely crazy ideas Coppola was developing. The performances are what make the world of New Rome feel as real as possible. Shia Lebeouf is one of the standouts in his role as Clodius, Caesar's cousin. Aubrey Plaza, who has the best character name of the year, Wow Platinum, owns the screen in every scene she appears in as a power-hungry media personality.
The megalopolis tries to do too much, but you will never see anything like it.
Megalopolis It feels like a movie designed to be seen more than once, and from the director who has given us at least four different versions of Apocalypse NowUnsurprisingly, many viewers won't be able to get much out of a single viewing. There's so much going on that processing it all becomes a constant battle.
And yet there is something admirable about the sheer ambition on display in Megalopolis. Francis Ford Coppola clearly had something to say, something he wanted to do, and he has certainly done it here. It is hard to imagine that he left anything on the table. One experiences many emotions when watching Megalopolisbut boredom is never one of them.
Of course, sometimes some of the most creative minds can end up in limbo when there isn't some level of oversight to keep them in check. When you have the freedom to do whatever you want, sometimes you create art, sometimes you create madness. In this case, it's a bit of both.
There are moments of pure beauty. The creativity on display can take your breath away at times. And the ideas that are at the heart of Megalopolis These are ideas worth considering. And then sometimes you wonder, “What the hell did I just see?”
Maybe Megalopolis It's a revolution in the world of cinema. Maybe not. It's a film that will undoubtedly leave many viewers frustrated, but sometimes that's what happens when great art challenges us. That's probably a question for the future, not the present, and as the film itself says: “Don't let the present destroy the forever.”