Writer’s note: The second paragraph of this article (just below the first image) contains a basic outline of the film’s premise. There are no spoilers that weren’t already inferred in the film’s own trailer. However, if you want to completely avoid potential spoilers, skip over the second paragraph.

Many filmmakers love the idea of having complete creative freedom over their projects. While directors, writers and actors often give their all on every job, not every job is actually of interest to them. Sometimes they are contractually obligated, and sometimes they accept the work in order to gain trust or funding for their passion project. Director Francis Ford Coppola is the most curious case of a filmmaker fighting for creative control. He is most known for The Godfather (1972), which is widely considered to be one of the best films of all time. Therefore, it’s fascinating to note that The Godfather wasn’t Coppola’s passion project, but rather a studio job he reluctantly accepted in order to pay off some debts. Why was he in debt? Coppola’s mission to make experimental films outside of the studio system has been his lifelong goal, yet outside of The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979), every attempt has failed. This has been Coppola’s entire career, as he accepts work on films he’s not interested in, so that he can claw his way back to the bold projects he actually cares about. Now, Coppola has truly given us one from the heart, with his long awaited Megalopolis (2024).

Set roughly in the 23rd Century, we are introduced to the city of New Rome, a feverish and decaying metropolis, and a fusion of New York and Ancient Rome. Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is a famous architect, who intends to rebuild the failing city into a utopia called Megalopolis. This is to be done with his creation of a new alloy called Megalon, an almost magical material made from DNA of his deceased wife. Additionally, Cesar has the ability to manipulate space and time, which he uses to plot out his grand reconstruction. All is not easy for Cesar, as his nemesis Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is committed to stopping his plans, and maintaining the city’s status quo. Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) grows a connection with Cesar, helping them both discover their role in creating a better future. Meanwhile, TV presenter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) plots to further her position of power, as does Cesar’s jealous cousin Clodio (Shia LaBeouf).

The first thing to note is Megalopolis’ highly operatic style, which feeds into literally every aspect of the film. While the above plot synopsis sounds straightforward enough, it actually takes quite a lot of effort to follow the plot, characters and story. Nothing in Megalopolis is directed, shot, edited, or even performed in a remotely traditional manner. When you’re expecting the first major exposition scene to occur, you have a character reciting Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ in its entirety. When you’re expecting to see two characters share a heart to heart, they suddenly speak in Latin, never to bring their bilingual talents up again. This strangeness extends to the storytelling, with major plot beats occurring and then being resolved within minutes. Cesar Catilina may defy the laws of space and time, but Francis Ford Coppola defies the laws of filmmaking with Megalopolis. While this does render the film to be an exhausting mess, it’s thankfully never boring and is constantly interesting.

The oddity isn’t just with the direction and writing, but with the performances too. Usually you can tell when the cast is in sync, all understanding the intentions of the piece, and all performing with a similar tone. That’s not the case here, as everyone looks like they are a bit lost in Coppola’s sea of ideas. Adam Driver is doing a mostly standard dramatic performance, except when he is compelled to heights of melodrama at random points. Nathalie Emmanuel feels like she’s performing in a romantic drama, and Giancarlo Esposito oscillates between being in a paranoiac thriller or a political cartoon. The strangest performances come from Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf, who feel like they’d be more at home as villains in a Batman film. Various other heavy hitters fill out the cast, including Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman and Lawrence Fishburne, yet many of their roles feel rather perfunctory. The simplest explanation for the cast’s choices is that they are each giving different interpretations of how Ancient Roman theatricality would appear in the modern day.

So with all the weirdness, what is Coppola saying, or does he even know what he’s saying? A film this bizarre can’t be by accident, and happily it is possible to decipher Coppola’s intentions. If you look back at Apocalypse Now (Coppola’s most successful art project) it’s apparent that he’s trying to achieve the same result. Apocalypse Now took Joseph Conrad’s famous book Heart of Darkness (1899) and transplanted its themes, ideas and messages into an original story set during the Vietnam War. With Megalopolis, Coppola is attempting to transplant the Roman Catilinarian Conspiracy (an attempted coup by Lucius Sergius Catilina to overthrow Marcus Tullius Cicero in 63 BC) into a futurist fable. Coppola is fixated on the idea that stories of the past can inform our present and our future, wanting us to see how our actions and failures today aren’t any different from what they were long ago. He sees our modern world collapsing in a similar fashion as the ancient one, so Megalopolis is his attempt to make that parallel known, and is his plea to progress civilisation forward.

With that in mind, the film itself is a statement, as he is actively trying to push the boundary of what is possible or acceptable with filmmaking. With all the out of the box directing decisions, he is literally saying that we need to try new things in order to progress. If Megalopolis told it’s perfectly compelling story in a perfectly straightforward manner, Coppola would feel as though he is not living up to the film’s mission statement. It’s evident that he feels he needs to direct by the film’s creed, given that the protagonist Cesar Catilina is an obvious stand-in for Coppola himself. Cesar is a misunderstood artist who wants complete control over his work, and is constantly trying to break away from the rules placed down by corporate overlords, just like Coppola. Even Cesar’s relationship with Julia mirrors that of Coppola’s own late wife Eleanor, who was a supportive and driving force behind his creativity and ambition.

All this means that Coppola has absolutely no interest in conforming to traditional storytelling while preaching his messages. Everything in the film is metaphorical, and intended to be interpreted as you would an abstract painting. Some of the metaphors are more clear than others, but there’s no mistaking their presence. Take for instance giant Roman statues which walk and move amongst the streets of New Rome. There are collapsed monuments of powerful men, and Lady Justice drops her scales and sword from clear exhaustion. Nothing in the film is to be taken literally, yet all of it actively points to social, moral, ethical, religious and political ideas. Coppola doesn’t just want to show us these metaphors, but wants the viewer to become an active participant, going as far as incorporating live theatre into the experience. In the real world, the common people often hold the powerful to account, so he tries to recreate that feeling by having literally one of the cinema viewers come up to the screen and ask questions of Cesar after a critical disaster. It’s all very impressive, ambitious and unforgettable, but ultimately it’s just boiling down to a very simple message. An important one, but simple nonetheless. Once we reach the conclusion, one can’t help but ask, ‘was all that really necessary’?

The answer is both yes, and no. No, because it resulted in a messy, incoherent and actively frustrating film. A film which could’ve been a modern classic, and a widely understood plea for a brighter future. Yes, because that message will still reach some, and the highly esoteric storytelling will make the film a curious point of discussion for years. Megalopolis is far from the masterpiece it wants to be, or even just a good film in general, but it’s certainly not without good intentions.    

6/10

Best way to watch it: At some kind of event screening. Does certainly make for memorable viewing.