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‘Megalopolis’ has been a long time coming. Originally conceiving the idea decades ago, Francis Ford Coppola set out on a quest to tell a fable that maps the fall of Rome onto modern America, a cautionary tale about where we’ve been before and where we’re headed. After years of studios turning him away and needing to halt progress in favor of other projects on multiple occasions, Coppola finally decided to sell a good chunk of his winery to fund this nine-figure project himself. Reconciling a story this expansive and a production this huge was a monster task, but it remains to be seen whether this will be the event of the year that would justify a film of this scale and magnitude. Buckle up, it’s a wild ride ahead.
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Untangling the Plot, On-Screen and Off
In a similar world to that of ‘Metropolis’ (1927), Fritz Lang’s early sci-fi expressionist epic, ‘Megalopolis’ is set in a not-too-distant future Manhattan reskinned as “New Rome”, where the chasm between the haves and have-nots is ever growing. Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), the vanguard of the old regime content with concrete and a divided society, is at odds with Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), an idealist architect who wants to rebuild the city using his basically-magic scientific breakthrough “Megalon”. Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), tired of her place in the limelight as just another vapid socialite, searches for meaning and finds it in working for and eventually falling in love with her father’s nemesis Cesar.
Meanwhile, Cesar’s once-mistress Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), a TV presenter who built herself up from nothing, is on a search of her own for power. When Cesar falls in love with Julia, she sets her sights on the wealthiest man in New Rome, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight)… who also happens to be Cesar’s uncle. On top of all of this, Cesar’s cousin Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) is simultaneously embroiling himself in a myriad of controversies and attempting to lead a people’s rebellion against his wealthy family. Watching over everything, Lawrence Fishburn narrates as an all-seeing storyteller recounting this “fable” (and drives Cesar around as Fundi Romaine, the chauffeur).
The story pulls from quite a few sources, from the underlying themes of Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ and the Catilinarian Conspiracy of ancient Rome, to modern American politics and technological advancements and their ethical ramifications. Coppola started developing this idea of comparing the fall of Rome to the future of the United States in the late 70s, but was forced to abandon it in favor of more profitable projects. After revisiting it and letting it go multiple times, pre-production finally began in earnest for ‘Megalopolis’ in April 2019, only for filming to be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palm d’Or where the first audiences to see Coppola’s latest epic were extremely split. Is ‘Megalopolis’ a work of genius, or madness? Maybe both.
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A Spectacle Like No Other
Boy, is this movie a spectacle and a half. The production is gorgeous, the costumes are gorgeous, the visual effects are gorgeous, it’s all truly a feast for the eyes. New Rome feels rich and glamorous and dark and luscious, but when it exposes its underbelly we can see the shaky foundation utopias are built on (another reference to ‘Metropolis’, though Coppola spends far more time above ground than examining the suffering that occurs under the surface). Obviously, it’s a world meant to reflect our own and where it’s headed, one full of inequalities and distractions, where those with wealth and status often run rampant. There’s plenty to outright shock audiences as well. LaBeouf’s character spends much of his time on screen in drag, there’s a deepfaked explicit video of a Vestal Virgin (weird reference, but ok), Driver’s Cesar has the ability to stop time and reconstruct human faces as if nothing happened. That doesn’t even include some of the more wild plot points. The crazy revelations keep piling up, but one might ask, to what end?
The cast at the very least seems to be having a good time making this movie. According to Aubrey Plaza for Deadline, the actors had a lot of freedom to make the characters their own, and were even writing scenes and pitching them to the script supervisor. Her character’s trajectory is pretty spectacular, ending in a twist that you might have seen coming but will still elicit a gasp. Adam Driver is really Adam Driving the on-screen performances, delivering a conflicted idealist navigating a murky future with heart, even if he is the only one taking himself too seriously. Esposito and Emmanuel’s strained father-daughter relationship makes for an interesting dynamic around which the film revolves, though Esposito arguably deserved more time and material to explore the mind of Mayor Cicero.
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Is It Enough?
Let’s address the elephant in the room. There is something deeply wrong in the conventional storytelling and pacing of this movie, so much so that it can undermine what this project could and should have been in the minds of an audience. It tries to cover so much ground and so many characters that it’s easy to get lost, and one ends up wondering where that thread was going. In hindsight, it feels like ‘Megalopolis’ was a trilogy of movies, and this is the collection of scenes that you actually still remember months later. The connective tissue that is meant to hold the plot of a film together is all but completely missing, but it still manages to be over two hours long. For some, this flies in the face of everything they want and expect of film and narrative storytelling. For others, this may very well defy convention in a similar vein as ‘Apocalypse Now’. Coppola believed in this project, so much so that he self-funded this $120 million behemoth. Maybe that’s enough. All you as an audience member need to do is sit back, relax, and release your notions of linearity and plot. What remains to be seen is whether or not audiences at large will be able to let go.
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Author
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Abigail Whitehurst is an entertainment professional and writer for Hollywood Insider based in Los Angeles, CA. Having lived all over the world as part of a military family and having pursued a bachelors of music, she brings a unique outlook to the entertainment industry. A life-long learner and researcher, Abigail is pursuing her masters in entertainment management. She strives to write through the lenses of context, analysis, and Hollywood Insider’s values to bring a fresh perspective to industry trends, entertainment business, and new film and TV releases. Her favorite place is a movie theater, and she’s always hunting for the deeper meaning and studying media as it pertains to culture. Film, TV, and interactive media are some of the most impactful artforms of our day, and they are worth digging into and analyzing. Everything is connected, whether it’s through Bacon numbers or history. When she’s not writing or at the movies, you can find Abbie crocheting or playing video games with her partner.
Abigail Whitehurst is an entertainment professional and writer for Hollywood Insider based in Los Angeles, CA. Having lived all over the world as part of a military family and having pursued a bachelors of music, she brings a unique outlook to the entertainment industry. A life-long learner and researcher, Abigail is pursuing her masters in entertainment management. She strives to write through the lenses of context, analysis, and Hollywood Insider’s values to bring a fresh perspective to industry trends, entertainment business, and new film and TV releases. Her favorite place is a movie theater, and she’s always hunting for the deeper meaning and studying media as it pertains to culture. Film, TV, and interactive media are some of the most impactful artforms of our day, and they are worth digging into and analyzing. Everything is connected, whether it’s through Bacon numbers or history. When she’s not writing or at the movies, you can find Abbie crocheting or playing video games with her partner.
