Let’s cut to the chase: there has never been anything like “Megalopolis,” and there will never be anything like it. Maybe there shouldn’t be. After all, no Hollywood filmmaker has ever set the bar for overwrought, unruly passion projects as high as Francis Ford Coppola.
The American director has never been one to keep both feet on the ground in pursuit of extraordinary cinematic visions, regardless of their critical or commercial potential. The production of “Apocalypse Now” was so intense and chaotic that it nearly killed its lead actor, and “One from the Heart” bombed so hard it left Coppola bankrupt and in debt for over a decade.
Despite all of that, “Megalopolis” might actually be his most unbelievable achievement yet. Coppola spent more than 40 years and his own $120 million fortune on this Roman epic set in modern America, and the result is as bewildering as it is astounding. “Megalopolis” is a maddeningly radical antithesis to the homogenized state of studio filmmaking and our society as a whole, and a psychotically beautiful fantasy unlike anything in my lifetime.
The film follows Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver), an architect determined to build a better future in the declining metropolis of New Rome. Armed with the mystery material Megalon and the ability to stop time, his utopian vision is met with opposition from the corrupt, reactionary mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). But when Franklyn’s debutante daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) takes an interest in Cesar and his plans, a debate is sparked about what the future will and should hold for humanity.
On paper, the narrative of “Megalopolis” is fairly simple, true to its subtitle of being “a fable.” But in action, there’s a relentlessly feverish and experimental quality to how it unfolds. The loose, improvisational methods Coppola practiced in composing this behemoth lead to some of the most boundary pushing ideas I’ve ever seen on an IMAX screen — the moment at my screening in which a real person stepped up with a microphone and asked a question to Cesar in the film that he actually responds to is really just the tip of the iceberg.
From construction beams dangling above the city to a popstar singing about her virginity alongside her holographic clones, the amount of brilliant images and bizarre details crammed into this film is staggering. The hybrid of fantastically artificial CGI and elaborate production design is even more unreal. Even with how strongly its singular aesthetic clicked with me, it didn’t make any one of these 138 minutes any less dizzyingly dense.
The film’s massive ensemble cast is just as wildly assorted. Shia LaBeouf is maybe perfectly cast as Cesar’s demented cousin Clodio Pulcher, but my favorite character in the film has to be Aubrey Plaza’s insatiable news reporter Wow Platinum. Every actor might as well be in a different movie, but their performances are still endlessly entertaining.
As a vanity project and soapbox for its rich 85-year-old director, it’s just as strangely compelling. Cesar acts as a blatant self-insert for Coppola — a misunderstood genius that can do no wrong, at one point literally described as an eccentric mad scientist with a dream that could kill everyone. Coppola’s Randian idealism and what can best be described as old man politics could generously be called naive, but the sheer romanticism and hopefulness radiating from this film is genuinely transcendent.
This will no doubt be one of the most polarizing films of this year, this decade and of Coppola’s entire body of work. But whether you think it’s a mess or a masterpiece (or both), there’s no denying that “Megalopolis” is as essential a reminder as ever of the unlimited potential of the art form of cinema.
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