The Dice Have Been Cast: ‘Megalopolis’ Review
Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film is a sci-fi sword-and-sandal hybrid Megalopolis which debuted at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews. Critics either loved the film for its complex themes and unique style or ravaged it for its hard-to-follow plot and its baffling performances. At its core, Megalopolis is a movie that needs to be seen to be believed. It is hard to encapsulate the sheer grandiose nature of the film. There isn’t anything else to compare the film too. Megalopolis introduces numerous unique aspects that make the film a magnanimous attempt at making a political statement in an attempt to try and unify America. However, the film ultimately fails to deliver on anything meaningful that it is trying to say.
The film follows Cesar Catilina, played by Adam Driver, a maverick architect and free thinker as he wages a political war against Mayor Franklin Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito, who opposes Catilina’s ideas for making a better New Rome, a distant future sci-fi stand in for New York. Meanwhile, Cicero’s daughter Julia, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, begins working for and ultimately falls in love with Catilina. All the while, the city of New Rome falls into political unrest as charismatic entertainment journalist Wow Platinum, played by Aubrey Plaza, schemes with her nephew & lover Clodio Pulcher, played by Shia Lebouf, to play the will of the people against Mayor Cicero’s regime.
The film’s plot is no less confusing once one sits through a screening of the film. The plot is a half-baked mess that often loses track of its many loose strings. Watching the film gives the viewer a story that comes off as one that is half-remembered and half-improvised. The script for this film was written by Coppola decades ago and reportedly has been in development hell since 1983 with countless cancellations and a track record of nothing but turnaround that rivals that of a merry-go-round. The plot sets up a lot of interesting concepts: Cesar’s ability to stop time, Wow Platinum’s scheming, and the gargantuan statues that seemingly roam around New Rome. However, these things are rarely brought back in a meaningful way. About halfway through the film, Cesar loses the ability to stop time and it’s never explained why and it never comes back into play. Wow Platinum’s arc ends in a baffling manner that defies all narrative logic for the sake of a twist. The statues that walk around New Rome are only shown a handful of times and never affect the plot or the characters. There is a substantial scene dedicated to Vesta Sweetwater, a vestal virgin and pop star played by Grace VanderWaal, singing an original song for the motion picture which ends with a twist that is never resolved. That entire sequence comes off as Oscar bait for the Best Original Song category and whose resolution, or lack thereof, is baffling. The film’s plot is hard to decipher.
The dialogue, and the writing in general, was baffling at times. For example, the line “You’re so anal but I am oral” being the biggest offender. Lines like this make it clear that there really was no oversight or criticism other than Coppola on this set. In general, the dialogue is passable and the wildly different performances did little to help the intense absurdity of the film. The inane dialogue takes a back seat to the grandiose sense of scale the film has but the dialogue has some hidden gems that need to be heard to be believed.
Another point of of confusion with the film is in the direction. It feels like every character is in a different film. Giancarlo Esposito has the megalomaniacal charisma of a Tim Burton-era Batman villain. The over-the-top performance harkens back to silent era horror stars and vaudevillians who played for the back row. It’s near Shakesperian on gumption alone. Franklin Cicero has a sincere hatred for Cesar and Esposito’s performance evokes that hatred with a bombastic sense of grandeur. It’s sadly not really explained why Cicero hates Cesar and thus its conclusion comes off as hollow. However, Esposito does his best to handle this poorly written character.
This film’s direction is also not clear in its messaging and themes with what its wanting to say. Near the beginning there is a scene where Cesar Catilina crashes a speech being given by Franklin Cicero where Cesar reveals to a large crowd of onlookers that he will build a new section of New Rome using Megalon. This scene serves two purposes: one is to illustrate the relationship between Cesar and Cicero and the other is to draw a comparison to the common people of New Rome as to that of a Roman Senate. This film’s themes are meant to be applicable to that of the real world so this might come off as a poignant political statement about how the people of the film and thus our own society have the same level of power as that of the senate we appoint. However, this particular theme is then negated throughout the rest of the film by having nothing change politically or societally at the end of the film.
The film’s plot is hard to describe because it tries to expand upon ideas it hasn’t properly foregrounded which ultimately leaves the audience baffled at some points. Characters don’t have a lot of motivation in much of their actions. It isn’t properly explained why Julia sneaks away from her responsibilities to her father in order to work for Cesar. The writing style of this film is akin to that of the final season of Game Of Thrones: twists for the sake of twists while ignoring the established character’s original motives. It is rumored that Francis Ford Coppola was smoking marijuana in-between takes on set and the overall story progression definitely reflects that.
On a more positive note, the film’s cinematography was unique and offered an island of sanity in the technical aspects of the film. The sequences where Cesar abuses various substances or after he gets assaulted at Hamilton Crassus & Wow Platinum’s wedding which had interesting uses of non diegetic sequences that utilized intricate choreography and whose cinematography enhances the sequence through its dynamic movement. Furthermore, the rise en scene of the film is unlike anything that sci fi political thrillers have tend to have. The classical aesthetic is wholly unique and the aesthetic shows a clear love for ancient Rome on the part of Coppola. The futuristic toga/suit hybrids, latin script all over the scenery, gladiator fights, chariot races, and Saturnalia celebrations offers an execution in world building. The outfits are fittingly gaudy with Aubrey Plaza’s Cleopatra pastiche for the Saturnalia proceedings being a particular highlight.
Nathalie Emmanuel gives a strong performance that grounds the film with her naturalistic acting style and strong on screen presence. She provides a strong sense of self to a character that would come off as two dimensional in other hands. Emmanuel’s ability to switch from the confident shell that Julia hides under to the self conscious woman that she is in private is something that takes a massive amount of skill. Her scenes with both Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito which not only show off her acting chops but also her ability to play off of more tenured actors. Her performance often drives the scenes in which she appears even in the smallest of moments. The delivery of her lines make up for their often clunky nature and poor motivations. If every actor in the film seems to be in a different movie, it would seem that the tone that Nathalie Emmanuel sets is the one that understands Coppola’s vision the most.
The film is incredibly difficult to encapsulate. The vibrant color pallet and dynamic cinematography is something to behold while the writing pitfalls and countless missed opportunities in the direction are baffling. At its core, this film needs to be seen to be believed. Despite the general insanity of the film it has a lot of bright spots. It seems that Coppola was attempting to give his outlook and philosophy on the world a platform but the film doesn’t make a strong statement about anything. Through reflecting the history of ancient Rome onto our own society Coppola attempts to draw comparisons to a dying empire that is on the brink of tyranny. However, the film does not follow through with the metaphor it’s attempting to place onto a structureless plot with a unique aesthetic.
Ultimately, although the film has little to say the film is still something to behold. To borrow a quote, it’s too weird to live but too rare to die. Nothing before or since has attempted to construct such a Frankenstein’s monster of bloated self-aggrandizing metaphors.
