Cannes 2024: Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ is One Big Ambitious, Epic Mess

Cannes 2024: Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ is One Big Ambitious, Epic Mess

by Alex Billington
May 16, 2024

“Don’t let the now destroy the forever.” There will be no one review that will say everything that one could say about this film. No one critic will be able to cover it all, nor will they be able to accurately describe the experience of watching this film. It is a film that needs to be seen (with your own eyes) to be believed. As cliche as that is to write, considering this is the spectacular new $100M+ passion project from the cinema legend Francis Ford Coppola, it couldn’t be truer anyway. Megalopolis premiered today at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, leaving critics baffled, confused, astounded, and intrigued. No matter what I have to say, no matter my own thoughts, this is just one quick take on it and great cinema is about discussing many interpretations and perspectives. That said, Megalopolis is definitely not a new masterpiece. Maybe it will be considered one in 20 years? Maybe not. Only time will tell… As for today’s viewing experience, well, it’s a mix of everything. Confounding yet fascinating! Exhilarating yet trashy! Even if you hate the film, you really can’t be against Coppola for giving it his all trying to make his point (or many points) before his time is up.

Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited passion project as an ambitiously massive movie that he has been wanting to make for decades. It’s his treatise on America, his critical look at the grand downfall of America (as is happening now) similar to the downfall of Rome. The film’s opening title card literally states that it’s “A Fable” and instead of setting it in the actual city of New York, it’s set in “New Rome”, as he calls it. A bit like Superman’s Metropolis, but Coppola’s Megalopolis. Within this framework, he drops line upon line, title card upon title card, voiceover upon voiceover of diatribes, platitudes, and cliches about America and how it is collapsing like the Roman Empire once did – slowly, but surely, that is. It may not be new or courageous to say anymore, but he posits that it’s because of the greed & ignorance of a powerful few. Adam Driver is the star of the show, playing a visionary architect named Caesar Catalina, who is the ambitious left-minded person dreaming of a utopia. He’s countered by Mayor Franklyn Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito, who wants to keep the city and all its glitz & glamour as is, rejecting the potential of any utopia.

Can a movie be simultaneous brilliant and a huge mess at the same time? Coppola certainly tries! And boy does he have a LOT to say. Megalopolis packs in every single thought he has about America and its failures into 2+ hours. On one hand, it is irrefutably a mess, with mishmash of wild scenes that are more bombastic than meaningful. There’s too much stagey showmanship, not enough coherent filmmaking & storytelling, which is strange for a filmmaker who has made more than a few all-timer cinema classics. The result is an oddity. Megalopolis is a truly peculiar work of cinema that some will hate, some will love. I’ve already seen comments saying both they despise it or admire it. There are a couple scenes that I did enjoy, though not enough of them. There are even moments (especially in the second half) where it’s clearly visible on Adam Driver’s face that even he is tired of performing for Coppola and doing endlessly showy takes while letting Coppola try to do whatever he’s trying doing on set to get his shots. The film is nonetheless a compelling criticism of America with a ton of accurate observations, though they’re so blatantly stated that none of it is going to actually connect with viewers and make them contemplate their involvement in America’s downfall.

One of the most bewildering moments arrived about halfway into the film. At our Cannes press screening, a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere, walked onto the stage, a light turned on and he stood with a mic, looking at the stage, speaking into the mic interacting with Adam Driver (on screen). For those curious, as far as I can tell, Coppola wanted to *literally* break the 4th wall in this scene by having a guy (an actor??) appear *in-person* in the theater and “ask a question” during a press Q&A with Adam Driver’s character (in the film). I get what he’s going for, but it happens out of nowhere, lasts for 60 seconds, then never happens again. Coppola has been trying to innovate cinema in his later years, and this kind of gimmick is his attempt to do something that breaks down the barriers of the screen. My belief is that his goal is to try and get the audience to actually feel they are a part of the conversation, that they are literally involved in the discussion within the film about “which future should we build.” One example of the film’s confusion is the way it often says that “participating in the conversation” is good for a healthy society, however it then shows how all of the pompous characters within the story can’t actually have any real conversations with yelling or bickering.

I admire Coppola’s ambition, and I honestly do appreciate what he’s trying to say with Megalopolis; even if he’s trying to say about 100 different things in one film (and that rarely ever works). It’s hilarious how often he straight up quotes Shakespeare or Marcus Aurelius to literally state with dialogue what he wants to say, instead of showing it with cinema. The Shakespearean dialogue and references, right down to various cousin characters criss-crossing in lewd ways, are bothersome because they make the film feel less cinematic and more theatrical. Which then makes his sets and his performances feel like they’re meant for the stage, too. In terms of his criticism of America, I’m on Coppola’s side, and I do believe in a real utopia if we could only stop fighting and get over ourselves (and our greed, selfishness, etc). I wish he had spent more time crafting a more coherent script (and a more coherent film) to make his points, to make sure that audiences would actually absorb his ideas. Perhaps we’ll all look back on this film in 20 or 50 or 100 years time and think, yep, he really got it right. But I still wish it was more entertaining, more understandable film than this one.

Alex’s Cannes 2024 Rating: 5 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing

Find more posts: Cannes 24, Review