Megalopolis (2024)

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman

Led by a perplexing Adam Driver, Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited passion project is a slapdash, self-indulgent mess that overstuffs its tedious narrative with decades’ worth of ideas

Going into 2024, there was one film that caught my eye more than any other, the long-awaited passion project from legendary “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola. The 85-year-old filmmaker has provided cinema with arguably its most iconic series of films, with the first two outings considered by many to be the greatest of all time. Despite the more middling reviews towards “The Godfather Part III” upon its release in 1990, the film still scored seven Academy Award nominations, including two for Coppola himself taking his personal tally up to an impressive fourteen.

Coppola has also helmed many other classics throughout his illustrious career such as; “The Conversation” (1974), “Apocalypse Now” (1979), and “Peggy Sue Got Married” (1986). However, the iconic filmmaker has struggled to adapt to the modern cinematic landscape as he has gotten older, having only released three feature length movies since the turn of the century, all of which having failed both critically and commercially. Coppola, who has long been outspoken against studio interference, began work on his latest release “Megalopolis” way back in 1977, but found he was constantly battling with studios to get his “Magnum Opus” made.

Since its conception, Coppola collected countless notes, newspaper clippings and political cartoons to help influence an eventual screenplay, but following the box office failures of his movies “One from the Heart” (1982) and “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” (1988), he found himself without the financial means to fund the project. Coppola switched his focus to directing “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), “Jack” (1996) and “The Rainmaker” (1997) to accumulate the funds needed to get out of debt, only for production to be halted further in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. In 2019, it was announced a script had finally been completed and Coppola would go onto sell part of his highly profitable winery business to fund the $120million project himself, with production starting in 2022 having been delayed once again by the Covid-19 pandemic.

After a troubled, 47 year long production “Megalopolis” finally premiered at Cannes in May, the very festival where Coppola recieved the Palme d’Or for “Apocalypse Now” 45 years ago. Despite some praise towards its ambition and scope, the film struggled to win over the festival crowds, and more worryingly any potential distributors. With its large budget and lack of a distinct demographic, distributors anticipated the film would flop at the box office and declined the opportunity to market it given the financial risks. To get the film in cinemas, Coppola ultimately agreed a deal with Lionsgate, who had previously distributed the filmmaker’s various director’s cuts, with Coppola personally funding the $17 million marketing campaign, thus removing any risk from Lionsgate.

Following a troublesome and limited marketing campaign, which saw a trailer removed due to its use of A.I., the film, as predicted, has flopped horrifically, having grossed just $4million in its opening weekend and garnering the damning alternate title “Mega-flop-olis”. Despite my understandable reservations going in to my screening, I remained open minded given the recently condemned box office failures “Babylon” and “Beau is Afraid“, two films which I believe will grow in cult status over the years and seen as departures from success for their own acclaimed filmmakers, Damien Chazelle and Ari Aster.

Taking place in neo-American city of “New Rome”, essentially a moderately futuristic New York City, we are introduced to misunderstood architect Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver), the founder and advocate of a new miraculous building material known as “Megalon”. Cesar finds himself constantly at odds with the city’s old fashioned conservative Mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who publicly ridicules Cesar’s vision of an American utopia, “Megalopolis”, believing it to be a false haven. The battle for power is complicated further when Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) becomes romantically involved with Cesar, as the two begin to plan the future of “Megalopolis” together, much to Cicero’s chagrin.

Also opposing Cesar’s dream is his spoilt brat cousin Clodio (Shia LaBeouf), who too has a fondness for Julia, as well as Cesar’s ex-mistress and financial journalist, the excellently named Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), both of whom wish to take of control the obscenely wealthy Crassus banking empire, currently chaired by the bumbling Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), in a bid to claim “New Rome” for themselves. There a other various subplots and side characters that are weaved through the narrative, including Cesar’s unexplained ability to stop and start time at will, and the inevitable crash landing of a defunct Soviet satellite.

You would think a project that has been on the backburner for over for decades would have plenty to say, but for all its visual ambition and literary references, “Megalopolis” is a shambolic and painfully dull experience. The political and philosophical themes which Coppola does address are dealt with so heavy handed that they are visually and audibly spelt out on a series of Romanic plaques throughout the film. Coppola’s conceit of comparing modern day America with the Roman empire may have been novel back during the movie’s conception all those years ago, but now with various multimedia platforms as well as an expanding film and TV market, his ideas have become tired and lack the nuance to say anything engaging or original.

What makes the lengthy production and constant rewrites more evident is the inconsistencies within the themes and narrative itself, with Adam Driver’s central figure Cesar, clearly tied to the movie’s original theme of modern civilisation’s downfall, identifying more with Coppola himself than the infamous Roman leader. In the midst of the movie’s catastrophic marketing campaign, was a relatively effective trailer that highlighted the various criticisms initially aimed at Coppola for his now well regarded projects, with the trailer’s narrative proclaiming that “true genius is often misunderstood”. This desperate last minute attempt to brush aside the film’s mixed reviews at Cannes, only adds to the narrative that Cesar is a god-like genius, whose creative vision cannot be understood by others, especially his critics. This self-indulgent narrative that portrays Cesar as the smartest and most artistically minded person, seemingly in existent, is Coppola’s way of saying he is the greatest ever living artist and filmmaker, with the industry that refused to invest in his vision being represented by the hubris of power-crazed men, such as Cicero.

From a filmmaking standpoint the film is also a mixed bag, with some genuinely impressive visuals with Mihai Malaimare Jr.‘s vibrant palette of greens and golds depicting the abundance of wealth and almost magical nature of “Megalon” itself. However, many of these visuals are occasionally ruined by some abysmal special effects that not only cheapen the film but also negates the impressive crafts from the production and costume department who have painstakingly integrated ancient Rome into a neo-utopian setting. I admire Coppola for his ambition despite all the hurdles he has faced but having funded the film himself, there has not been anyone to guide him through the narrative, preventing him from whitling down 40 years of ideas to just those that are relevant in modern society – a rare example where studio interference may have proven beneficial.

Outside of the main six players vying for power, their are countless heavy-hitting actors shamefully reduced to the edge of frame. Jason Schwartzman and Dustin Hoffman seem to play no part in the plot whatsoever, almost if they just so happened to be on around on set one day of filming, with the latter being killed off-screen, only for his death to be shown in a flashback despite no prior mention of his demise. There is a subplot surrounding a sex scandal between Cesar and and virginal teenage popstar Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal), which comes and goes in a matter of minutes with no real impact on the narrative or Cesar’s character arc.

This explosion of ideas clearly had an impact on the impressively stacked ensemble cast, each of whom appear to be acting in completely different films altogether. Driver does what he can with his detestably obnoxious protagonist, having to quote Hamlet at length without coming across as pretentious was always going to be a struggle. Nathalie Emmanuel, who auditioned for the role over Zoom, has done well to move on from her soap opera days in the UK, but this seems like a big leap for her and is way out of her depth amongst the other cast members, delivering a painfully flat performance. Those who come out relatively unscathed are Esposito, Kathryn Hunter and Plaza, the latter of whom appears to tonally match the film with her vampirically sinister and deadpan performance. An honourable mention also for Talia Shire, who despite only minutes of screentime delivers some of the best lines of dialogue in an otherwise soulless screenplay. Those who will undoubtedly receive the most scrutiny from audiences having fallen victim to Coppola’s improvisational character approach, are Voight and LaBeouf, the latter sporting one of the worst hairstyles put to film for many years as he prances about the screen like an annoying moth to a inextinguishable flame.

Having finally seen “Megalopolis”, marketing and production issues aside, I am not surprised that it is tanking heavily at the box office as there is no indication as to who the film is for, other than, rather worryingly, Coppola himself. With the core cast of characters coming from absurd levels of wealth, with the power to change the political and social landscape at will, general audiences will find themselves unable to relate to anyone on screen. The only “genuine” members of the public in “New Rome” are only fleetingly depicted, and even then they are either rioting or left in squaller, one of Coppola’s many political motifs that inadvertently distances those he is trying to warn of a potentially crumbling American utopia instead of having them embrace his vision.

At 85 years old, this is looking to be an unfortunate swan song for the iconic director, and while some may come out of “Megalopolis” having taken away more than myself, and while I admire filmmakers who wing for the fences, unfortunately for Coppola he appears to have strook out after many failed attempts. I would advise most to stay clear of seeing it unless you are aware what you may be letting yourself in for, but one think is for certain, it is a good film to spark a debate as to how projects like this can and do happen.

Megalopolis is now showing in UK Cinemas

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