Megalopolis (2024)

Synopsis

“I believe in America.”

So Francis Ford Coppola begins his undisputed classic, The Godfather. With Megalopolis, does Coppola still believe in America? In The Godfather, Coppola’s themes are complex, but lucid. In Megalopolis, he puts you on notice that you must work for any insight, subtitling it “A Fable.”

One could plausibly provide a “plot synopsis” of Megalopolis by skipping lightly through the action. Let’s give it a try: New Rome is a decaying, dystopian city that stands in metaphorically for the United States in general and New York City in particular. Romanesque buildings and stone placards with chiseled script stand side by side with modern skyscrapers. The poor dress like dockworkers, while the rich attend lavish to-dos robed in togas and other attire reminiscent of Hollywood spectacles set in ancient Rome.

Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a brilliant inventor, and Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), the mayor of New Rome, are waging a vicious public relations battle over their competing visions for rebuilding their crumbling city-state. Cicero envisions it as neon-drenched casino, Catalina as a futuristic utopia built with Megalon, his Nobel-prizing winning bio-active building material.

Though the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) is introduced as a superficial rich girl influencer, she matures quickly when she becomes so incensed by Cesar’s attacks on her father that she makes it her business to follow and expose him as a fraud. But then she witnesses something mind-blowing, extraordinary. For a few seconds, Cesar stops time so he might enjoy a moment. She alone is unaffected. Intrigued, she gets to know him better, first becoming his assistant and then, as you would expect, his lover. And the muse he desperately needs to continue his work.

Should I also mention that the theme and characters loosely invoke the Catilinarian conspiracy, a plot circa 63 BC to overthrow Roman leadership? Well, it’s there, but only in the broadest of strokes.

So, not bad, eh, synopsiswise? Let’s just say a bunch of other stuff happens. There’s the extravagant wedding banquet, held in Madison Square Garden which, in this alternate reality, is styled as a Colosseum-like stadium where the gladiators are MMA style fighters and virginal music stars descend ethereally from the ceiling. Cesar suffers an over-the-top bad acid trip. Characters follow each other through dank, Bladerunner-esque streets lined with sagging Romanesque statues. Every public gathering threatens to become a riot. The wobbling trajectory of a Soviet-era nuclear-powered satellite has the world on edge. Stuff like that.

Throughout, Cesar’s driver and assistant, Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne), also serves as narrator, blessing us with what little context we get.

See It

Even if you think Megalopolis is not your type of movie, you should see it anyway. If you follow movies seriously, whether you partake for sheer entertainment or pure intellectual exercise, you want to able to say: I was there when it happened.

Given his age and the much-reported fact he financed the picture by raiding his last assets, this is likely Francis Ford’s Coppola’s swan song. It shows. He has to know the controversy it will engender. He doesn’t care; he did it his way.

Whether it takes a few weeks, a few years, or a few decades for critical opinion to settle, you want the experience of having seen it at this exact moment in history. Coppola’s own Apocalypse Now was frequently panned on its debut but is now considered a classic. Then there’s Heaven’s Gate, with a devoted but still minority cadre of acolytes decades after its firebombing. We are too close to tell whether Coppola’s work is visionary or a fraud, though there are those already willing to make either case with confidence. Regardless of whether you praise or condemn, you get to say “I told you so” only if you told us anything after actually consuming it fresh from the garden.

One treat is the impressive parade of performances by veteran actors under Coppola’s direction. Adam Driver does about as well as one can expect bringing life to a role that is a manifestation of an idea, not a person. In particular, he gives a smashing-good rendition of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” speech (though how it fits into the plot is not clear). Giancarlo Esposito does a remarkably restrained job in the role of a villain who is not devotedly villainous. Nathalie Emmanuel has the most difficult task, gazing hither and thither in admiration, awe, or disgust, as if in hopes for being given something more meaningful to say, or do.

And then there’s a gaggle of performances in which we guess the actors just had fun: Aubrey Plaza as the journalist/seductress Wow Platinum, stealing every scene she’s in; Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher, the wormy nephew conspiring against everybody; Jon Voight as the fabulously wealthy but addled Hamilton Crassus III, who gets his pointed revenge; Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina, whose biggest regret in life is being Cesar’s mother; and Dustin Hoffman as Cicero’s fixer, who occasionally appears superfluously for no other reason than you can’t let Dustin Hoffman completely die on the proverbial cutting room floor.

Reviewing Megalopolis is a no-win situation given the shrillness of the early commentary. Pan it, and you sound like a monkey trying to inspect a watch. Praise it, and you sound like a pedantic pretender. What can I say? This:

I didn’t hate Megalopolis.

That’s not intended as faint praise or an easy out. I didn’t adore it either. I just didn’t hate it. I found parts of it annoying. Parts of it outrageously overplayed. Parts of it funny, wise, and observant. I definitely groked that it’s intended as a warning against the marriage of authoritarianism and corporate greed. It earnestly suggests we (maybe America, probably the human race) need to have a serious discussion about our future, which it doesn’t contend is irretrievably bleak.

But pulling apart all of the threads in detail is simply beyond my monkey brain, and I won’t play the part of the pedant claiming to know categorically, in this moment, whether it is a masterpiece or just Coppola giving the movie world the finger (both could be true). It’s one of those movies I recommend you watch as much for the experience as the message. But I will offer this prediction: the braver voices lauding it today will be the ones proud to say “I told ya so” years or decades from now.

When it appears on streaming, I’ll rewatch to see what more I can absorb after a double dip. Also, to capture some pithy quotes, especially the Marcus Aurelius ones (though their provenance is suspect). And especially to watch that closing scene with the baby. Now THAT I adored.