Francis Ford Coppola has been working on his passion project ‘Megalopolis’ for the better part of four decades. It has almost certainly undergone changes in his mind, on the script, and on set in the moment. The shifting nature of creativity are at the center of the film, and Adam Driver’s Cesar Catalina is the mouthpiece that brings that narrative to the front and center. When it is at it’s best ‘Megalopolis’ feels fresh, divine, like Shakespeare and the 1950s had a baby that came full formed into 2024, to show us how movies should look, how they should sound, and what messages they should bring with them. It is a piece like no other, truly daring in script and performance when it wants to be, real genuine moments of brilliance shine through. If only it always wanted to.

It’s odd that when the movie takes a break from the discussion of politics versus business versus artistry that it spends so much time on modern issues that are entirely made up. Francis Ford Coppola is an easy stand in for Driver’s Cesar, an arcitect trying to create a perfect city. He is of course, not listened to because of his vast intellect. He has been cancelled for being too daring, and yet het gets to give speeches and make the world he wants to? Inadvertantly Coppola seems to have actually hit the nail on the head when it comes to being cancelled, in that it’s not a thing that actually happens.

Cesar Catalina spends a lot of time complaining how no one will listen to him. How the younger generation does not have appreciation for the work that he has done, and how women especially waste their time with frivolous things. Hearing this, from a stand in for Francis Ford Coppola, a man who has by all measures, gotten to do whatever the hell he wanted in his artistry, in his personal life, in every perceivable way since 1972 when The Godfather came out, is absurd to say the least. It’s hard to watch a movie about being rebellious when you are spending your days hiding in a tower, selling your winery so you can make a misguided passion project.

The way the film treats women is an entirely different level of problem by itself. None of the women have agency, except for Aubrey Plaza’s character who is bizarrely named “Wow Platinum”. It’s a very fun performance and it feels like Plaza at least had a good grip on what kind of experimental picture this would be and got to take her own swing on the character. But for having agency and drive Wow Platinum is punished in a truly insane way. It’s honestly too bizarre to describe in writing, you’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

Outside of that there’s a line delivered by Kathryn Hunter, “Womanizer, what a terrible word. As if the woman had nothing to do with it.” Cesar Catalina makes fun of Nathalie Emmanuel’s Julie Cicero for spending too much time at the club. And even the narrator takes a couple jabs at “The women of New Rome” being vapid and caring too much about fashion and unimportant things. Julie Cicero largely exists simply as an unlikely woman to fall madly in love with the genius of Cesar Catalina, and of course carry on his lineage. The future he is creating, after all for his children. If you’re not going to have children why care about the future? Certainly not because other people might have children? No! We must carry on the Catalina line!

The worst part is there are moments that sucked me in. It was about every twenty minutes or so I would think “Wait this is actually getting close to being very profound”. While designing his city Cesar Catalina can stop time, and I love the idea that the creative process is a frozen moment in time, I’m so invested in a story about how the creation and story telling are a boon for all mankind. But there’s so much bitterness laced throughout it quickly loses any of the points it’s trying to make. Rather than being the rebel Coppola hoped he would be, he comes off as a bitter old man yelling at clouds.

I assume the rebellious nature could be that for forty years Coppola wanted to make ‘Megalopolis’ and no studio would let him. But now we get to see it and by every metric imaginable they were right! A rare studio executive win! It has failed commercially and critically, and while I think it is indeed worth seeing for the curious, I cannot say that it’s worth most people’s time. It should be seen for what it is, an insanely wealthy man who has lost touch with reality, feeling like he is being persecuted for the world moving past him, because rather than engage with the world he just stayed in his tower trying to reimagine it.

2/5