Megalopolis Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s Divisive Passion Project is an Audacious, Inspiring Movie Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before

   September 28, 2024
megalopolis review francis ford coppola
Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) in Megalopolis (2024), directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Score: 7/10

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Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis makes it crystal clear that the legendary director is disappointed in the trajectory of modern civilized life. To think that this passion project of his has been in the works for nearly four decades is astonishing considering how neatly it conveys modern anxieties about the fragility of social infrastructure.

And it is an odd diversion from Coppola, who has spent a career explicitly depicting the trials of evil. Whether its the seedy underbelly of mob innerworkings, or the mental and physical tolls of war, he’s often pursued stories that accuse civilization for our own failures rather than trying to course correct from where we’ve gone wrong.

Which makes Megalopolis – possibly one of Coppola’s last films as a director given his age and time in-between releases – such a rewarding and uplifting viewing experience. You have to work to get to that point, because there’s a lot to unpack in Megalopolis that is both upsetting and frustrating, but it’s a wonderful and awe-inspiring world that you eventually get to experience.

The narrative is not always the most straightforward, opting instead for a shotgun blast of storylines, characters, and themes. There’s a bit of Chazelle’s Babylon, a lot of David Lynch, and even some Leos Carax to go around in terms of its fragmented presentation, style, and world building.

Roughly speaking, Megalopolis follows the genius architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) as he seeks to transform the city of New Rome into a advanced, utopian society. His idealistic thinking is countered by the city’s mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).

Cicero is committed to a conservative, regressive status quo, which perpetuates greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. But Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) has fallen in love with Cesar, complicating her political identity and relationship to her father. The two parties grapple with the love affair in a way that’s not too dissimilar to the classic Romeo and Juliet narrative, only this time civilization hangs in the balance as society begins to decay into chaos.

The movie works a majority of the time, but Megalopolis is not without a few hiccups. The story is often experimental, but also a bit too convenient and opportunistic for my liking. There isn’t much cause-and-effect to the film, and instead you spend most of its runtime jumping from one thinly connected scene to another. It’s more interested in building an audacious world more than exploring the characters inside of that world.

Yet the absurd performances manage to pull the story along. Adam Driver delivers another worthy lead performance in a legendary auteur’s passion project, while the likes of Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, and Giancarlo Esposito add to an ensemble that makes Megalopolis feel alive.

Even Jon Voight and Shia LaBeouf fit rather nicely in this world as the dipshit members of the wealthiest family in New Rome. This family plays a central role in what happens in Megalopolis as their fortune is necessary to whoever is elected to run the city. LaBeouf is especially on a heater here, playing a character similar to the Roman Roy or Joffrey Baratheon. He’s way in over his head and out of touch with the common, middle class citizen, instead indulging in vices only those with generational wealth can.

I tend to resonate more with pessimistic storytelling (which probably says a lot about my personality), and while Megalopolis contains long stretches of that, the optimistic turn at the end had me hooked. The human species is capable of marvelous innovation. We have the ability to build utopia. Why spend time waiting?

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