Staff writer Jeff Chay reviews Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (2024).

In most instances, a big-budget arthouse epic helmed by one of cinema's pre-eminent auteurs would be met with considerable fanfare. Anticipation would no doubt be heightened when one learns that the film has been in development for nearly four decades. When the director splashes out $120 million of his own money to finance his masterpiece, freeing it from the meddling influence of money-minded Hollywood executives, people ought to be flocking to cinemas in droves to experience it. Yet this has not been the case for Megalopolis, the long-gestating cinematic brainchild of Francis Ford Coppola, legendary director of classics like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. The film, which amassed a paltry $4 million worldwide on its opening weekend, has been panned by critics and audiences alike, and denigrated by some as one of the worst films of all time. Naturally, this meant I had to experience Megalopolis in cinemas myself. And after enduring 138 minutes of Coppola's so-called magnum opus, I can confirm that the visionary director has indeed lost his mind.

The most striking thing about Megalopolis is its sheer weirdness. Everything about the film is utterly bizarre and off-kilter, from its erratic performances to its cringe-inducing dialogue and most of all, its overwrought and confusing story. Its “plot”—if it can be called that—follows Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver), a genius architect with plans for a futuristic utopia called Megalopolis, amid a series of personal melodramas and political intrigue in the upper echelons of New Rome (which is essentially New York but bathed in a perpetual yellow hue). Throughout the film, Coppola brazenly defies convention by eschewing any semblance of a coherent plot in favour of a chaotic mishmash of events simply happening one after another, ad nauseam. Conflicts suddenly arise and are unceremoniously resolved just as quickly without bearing any significance to the story. The film's opening scene shows Cesar harnessing his new ability to stop time at will, an outlandish superpower that is neither explained nor used in any meaningful way afterwards. The same happens when a subplot involving the unknown killer of Cesar's late wife is established but then seemingly forgotten. When Cesar is arrested for alleged intercourse with a minor, the issue is summarily resolved within five minutes when his lover Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) uncovers that Cesar has been framed by his jealous cousin Clodio (Shia LaBeouf). Given that Megalopolis was originally conceived as a six-hour epic, it should perhaps come as no surprise that drastically shortening it to fit a 138-minute runtime would create a disjointed story devoid of narrative momentum.

For a film centred around an idealised vision of society, Megalopolis also does precious little to flesh out its titular utopia. A few cursory wide shots of a grand, retrofuturistic cityscape, bathed in an oppressive yellow hue, are all the viewer gets to see of Megalopolis, creating an image of civilisation no more evocative than the “society if” meme template. Meanwhile, Megalon, the ethereal, near-omnipotent element on which Megapolis is founded, is essentially a tokenised plot device that is never developed or explained. It can supposedly bend the laws of physics, manipulate time, and heal fatal injuries, but these capabilities are never treated with necessary significance. Hence, for all its philosophical posturing, the central concepts underpinning Megalopolis are offensively lacklustre, resulting in a story that plays out like an overindulgent, pseudo-intellectual vanity project led by a past-it director.

Beyond its narrative shortcomings, Megalopolis is also rife with philosophical truisms and pick-and-mix literary allusions, creating an impression of utter pretentiousness. For some reason, the people of New Rome are prone to throw linguistic archaisms, poorly quoted Shakespearean monologues, and even straight-up Latin into their everyday conversations. Most egregiously, Cesar quotes (essentially butchers) the entirety of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet in an early scene, before dishing out this pearl of wisdom: “Don't let the now destroy the forever.” This is not to say, however, that the film's dialogue is predisposed to be high-brow in nature. At one point, Cesar's mistress Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) says to him: “You're anal as hell, Cesar. I, on the other hand, am oral as hell.” Shakespeare who?

The film's woeful script is made worse by a slew of uncanny and unnatural performances from its all-star cast, with characters vacillating between automaton-like monotony and wild-eyed melodrama without rhyme or reason. For instance, Cesar's political nemesis, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), is played like a stereotypical greedy mayor, vehement but narrow-minded in his strident espousal of the status quo, and never posing a believable threat beyond mere pantomime villainy. On the other hand, Cesar’s ego and idealism rankles to the point where his character becomes neither believable nor likeable. As such, the film's characters generally lack the depth required to anchor the film's lofty ideas, making it nearly impossible to do anything but laugh each time they utter something ridiculous.

Visually, Megalopolis is a paradox: it is somehow one of the nicest and ugliest-looking pictures of the year. Moments of undeniable visual grandeur, usually characterised by opulent gold tones and spectacular set design, are interspersed with some of the most poorly executed green-screen set pieces of the 2020s. To add to this, the film's narrative is separated into chapters, demarcated by interstitials which can be closely likened to PowerPoint slides, which makes for a slightly amusing contrast with the film's high-concept, high-budget prestige. Hence, while Megalopolis may style itself as “a fable”, as reflected on its mythic title card and in its heavy-handed, parabolic tone, it is ultimately a grand folly that succeeds only in confounding its audience.

By the time the film finally hit theatres last month, it had already created a maelstrom of controversy. The lead-up to its wide release had been clouded by catastrophe, from allegations of on-set sexual misconduct by Coppola to a string of marketing mishaps, including the release of a trailer adorned with AI-generated quotes from critics. Crew members were even said to have questioned whether Coppola had ever made a movie before. In light of such a troubled production history, some might argue that Megalopolis was always doomed to fail.

Having said that, it was clear from the start that Megalopolis was made for one person: Coppola himself. In a cinematic landscape dominated by sequels, reboots, and franchises, it is refreshing to see a filmmaker bring a unique and personal vision to the screen, even if the final result is less than impressive. After all, one thing that can’t be said about Megalopolis is that it lacks originality. No AI tool could create something so ambitious, so out-of-sync, and so uniquely bonkers. While the film’s box office performance has been disappointing, it’s important to remember that cinema, like any other form of art, is more than a game of dollars and cents — it’s about making people feel something (even if, in the case of Megalopolis, that feeling tends to be slack-jawed confusion). Many were upset when studios refused to fund Megalopolis, and rejoiced when Coppola decided to finance it himself. After seeing the film, it’s easy to understand why no studio wanted to take such a big risk. But his daring has created a film that is, despite its innumerable flaws, unmistakably sincere in nature. As Coppola himself said: “There’s so many people when they die they say, ‘Oh I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that.’ But when I die, I’m going to say: ‘I got to do this.’”