Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a Nobel Peace Prize winner and visionary architect, wants to lead the city of New Rome into a glorious utopian future.  Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), however, has plans to maintain the status quo and all the riches and privileges that the exploitation of the mayoral seat affords his family and collected allies.  When his daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), begins to work for Cesar, Cicero grows furious at her betrayal, but as a rival political movement led by Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) with prominent backing begins to grow, Cicero and Cesar must put aside their differences if either is to have any control over the future. 

The long-pondered passion project of famed auteur Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis, finally made its debut after an almost signature troubled development and production ordeal.  Conceived back as early as 1977, this parable about the fall of Rome and the doomed American society struggled to get off the ground until finally, Coppola sold off a portion of his winery to fund the film.  Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the 138-minute gaudy pop-epic befuddled attendees and eluded distribution until a desperate deal was struck between the artist and Lionsgate. 

Rome may not have been built in a day, and if Megalopolis is any indication, its fall can not be truncated down to a single film, either.  Coppola’s vision is wide and wild, and while his vision of the future is both bleak and hopeful, the film lands with a soft thud as it clunkily delivers its thesis.  Had he been able to secure everything needed to bring about this vision in the late 70s and early 80s, it could have been hailed as a misunderstood masterpiece in retrospect by today’s audience, but with today’s audience being its contemporary audience, its musings about the trajectory which we are on as a country feels dated and slight.  It is a crystal ball reading that fails to inspire either hope or fear because we have already caught up to the warning that it reveals; the sky is not falling as it has already fell.  That being said, it does feel a little disingenuous to judge the film too harshly for coming along too late, but Coppola’s story is so messy that it becomes way too easy to pile on as we question what exactly we are seeing since it no longer has the benefit of being prescient on its side. 

Looking at what is presented, then, within its own context, still poses quite a problem as Coppola, having self-funded the film answers to no one and is working from a seat so entrenched in this vision, that it seems unlikely that any calls for edits or clarification from creative advisers would reach him.  Now, some of these bold and committed decisions do work in favor of the film, creating a unified visual style in an otherwise tonally varied film.  A prime example of what works in the film is Milena Canonero’s costume design that blends haute formal wear with gold-leafed breastplates and laurel crowns.  The costumes are a bold choice, but they shine when the film takes on its more theatrical – specifically, Shakspearian – scenes.  No stranger to writing about kings, power, and political upheavals, the Bard’s work is infinitely adaptable to modern time, place, and circumstance helping it to become so enduring, so while it may seem lofty to compare Megalopolis to one of the most famed writers in the English language, the two share a similar impenetrability despite their simple nature while embracing a flair for the theatrical and offering their cast ample opportunity to pine openly through flowing poetry. 

Some of the performers seem to have gotten that memo, while others in the wide ensemble cast are playing towards a different goal which leaves audiences apprehensive as they watch the events unfold, unsure of whether it is appropriate or not to laugh.  The unifying factor here is that none of the cast are able to deliver the endless stanzas of poetry or block quotes from the classic philosophers in a convincing way, but Mihai Malaimare Jr.’s camera also struggles to figure out how best to frame them when they deliver these asides.  Not quite a satire, Megalopolis markets itself as a fable, and as such, many of the characters are working in the broad strokes that make these moralistic tales work as there needs to be a clear definition between good and evil.  

Driver’s Cesar is the initial protagonist though Emmanuel’s Julia assumes that role later in the film as the great unifier willing to work across the aisle.  It is one of the stranger performances from Driver who is no stranger to strange roles at this point in his storied career peppered with passion projects from the masters; Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016), Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci (2021), and Michael Mann’s Ferrari (2023).  While he has made himself into something of a selling point when his name gets attached to a project, as the central figure of this film, he feels lost – committed to a performance, no doubt – but it seems the motivations that fuel the role elude him, and consequently, us.  He is tasked with serving two masters, at times needing to be deadly serious and other times letting loose in comic interludes, it is hard to say that the performance builds upon itself as the great roles do.  Even when his character survives an assassination attempt – one of the few plot points that audiences may remember in this foggy film where not a lot happens – it does not appear to have that heavy a sway on the flow of the narrative, but it does signal to the start of a stronger-than-what-came-before-it conclusion. 

That conclusion takes the form of a power grab by Clodio, Cesar’s cousin and son of Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), the wealthy head of the Crassus National Bank.  Clodio, or rather Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), a television news personality who has been working her way into the influential families of New Rome by sleeping her way into opportunities for power, money, and information.  She seduces Clodio, convincing him to engage in a plot to be named as interim CEO of the Bank, and once there to take over the board and oust his uncle.  Finally, there is some palace intrigue in this insnaring drama of the elites, but Coppola rushes by what could and should have been the entire film, or at the very least the starting point.  

So much of his filmography is focused on painful transitions – The Godfather trilogy (1972-1990), most notably, but also Apocalypse Now (1979), and The Outsiders (1983) fit the bill – but the script does not seem interested in engaging in this plot.  It could be another instance of an old master looking back and taking a more reflective approach to the final chapters of their career, but it is just unfortunate for us as an audience that the film seems focused on its least interesting and engaging parts and ends up presenting itself like a parade of campy nonsense. 

That being said, there is a point where all that camp pays off.  Roman poet Juvenal, through Coppola, was once again proven right that the masses will put aside their grievances so long as there is bread and circus; in this instance, held at the modern Collesium: Madison Square Garden.  It is, admittedly, a bloated sequence early in the film, but, it keeps us on the hook after a firehose of wild exposition in hopes that Coppola knows where to steer this behemoth and will deliver a satisfying saga.  It never quite takes shape especially when the camera slips outside of the arena to capture Cesar drunk, high, and half naked.  We do not have enough of a grasp of where the film is heading yet for this long tangent to fit into the narrative, and while it is passingly amusing, it is hard to figure out what we are supposed to glean from it and much like the French Plantation scenes that haunts the various cuts of Apocalypse Now, this circus is a masterclass in filmmaking that just does not work in context. 

Megalopolis is proof of both the strengths and weaknesses of auteurship.  It is a singular vision, brought about like any film by an army of craftspeople, but since the story has lived so long in Coppola’s head for so many years, he fails to catch his audience up to speed.  The look of the film – interesting, yet strange – poses an additional barrier to entry.  It is trapped in an offshoot of the uncanny valley where things do not look dead and hollow as we are used to in effects-heavy works because Coppola directed his production designers Beth Mickle and Bradley Rubin to play into the artificiality of it all.  This is not an allegation, but it leaves us with the same feeling of seeing AI “artwork” that looks real at first, but we soon realize that the details are blurred over in the smoothness of it all the longer we look at it.  This is not the future envisioned in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1972) nor is it the 1 B.C. Rome as seen in the same master’s Spartacus (1960).  It is a strange gradient from grey to gold and back to grey again, and it conversely feels like something that has been poured over for decades but has all the depth and detail of a scribbled sketch so as not to forget the quickly passing whisp on an idea.  This is all to say that Megalopolis may go down as another messy masterpiece from Coppola, and while it is a hard film to recommend, those who do deign to see it with an open mind will find moments of brilliance now that Coppola has finally gotten the means to open the gates and welcome us into Megalopolis with him.