Megalopolis

You have to admire the ambition of a film like Megalopolis, right from the concept, to the development, to the final execution of a passion project for a director, funded out of his own pocket, which decades of energy and creativity have been channeled through.  However, just because you have to admire it doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it, and boy, did I not connect with this one!

Plotwise, the idea behind the film is an ambitious future set sci-fi fable drawing parallels between the fall of the Roman empire, and a future USA which writer and director Francis Ford Coppola wishes to warn us about.  Set in a near future New York City, where a corrupt Mayor finds himself confronted by a visionary architect named Cesar, who has developed a new building material which will allow for a more sustainable molding of the city, more in tune with nature itself – but in doing so will heavily impact on the more traditional industries – Cesar sees threats from various parties as he rises to prominence, with heavy parallels being drawn from the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63BC.  The resulting plot is a fever dream history lesson on some wild medication, packaged together in a winding and somewhat incoherently edited manner, and acted out with all the gusto of a Shakespeare in the park amateur dramatics exercise!

Full of a sense of its own self importance, this passion project from Coppola, which has gestated over 4 decades, feels like all the importance and suggested portents it is desperately trying to convey have become muddied along the way to try to stay relevant to the progress of society, and the resultant heavy handed bludgeoning of ideas bogs down the themes too much to allow us to actually care for anyone within it.  Adam Driver in the central role of Cesar I suspect is supposed to be someone we root for, with his pioneering vision, and his unexplained ability to freeze time, but he just comes over as cold and distant, and somewhat unlikable himself.  The fact we don’t really get any understanding of what makes this new material he created so good for the future of society means that to all intents and purposes it could very well be the worst idea ever – and the fact it looks like an awful idea of a future urban plan doesn’t help (the ‘nature themed’ leaves and branches looked so unappealing that I was rooting for the concrete and steel industries to win out).

That’s not to say the film looks bad.  Indeed, visually this is superbly creative, with a New York that looks like it is from the early 20th Century, only with Roman undertones (including a gladiatorial arena).  The fashions are modern riffs on ancient designs.  Even the aforementioned new ‘plant like’ architecture does look visually superb, even if it looks like my idea of hell on earth.  The cast all sparkle in the environs and pageantry they inhabit, but sadly are let down by the trite dialogue they are spewing forth never landing with any success.  Some fare better than others, with Aubrey Plaza delivering a scene stealing role as a TV presenter with ambition standing out, but those who miss the mark are many, including Shia LaBeaouf as Clodio, Cesar’s jealous cousin, who is just an annoyance over overplaying.  Names such as Jon Voight, Jason Schwartman, Dustin Hoffman, and Talia Shire grace the screen but leave little to no lasting impact.  Giancarlo Espositio as the corrupt mayor simply plays the same role he appears to play everywhere else, whilst Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel lack the chemistry to convince of any burgeoning relationship between the pair.

This is a muddled mess, where any ideas of what it was intending to do appears to be lost somewhere down the line.  At times it reminded me of Southland Tales, but at least that film had the 3 part graphic novel series to prologue events, allowing for those scant few who read it to actually understand what was happening.  Here, we can only guess at past events, and to be honest I found myself swiftly not actually caring.

Ambitious, and I am pleased that Coppola has fulfilled an almost lifelong vision.  I can only hope he is happy with the end product, and glad to have shared it with the world, because that alone makes any art worthwhile.  Sadly, for me, this just didn’t work, and left me pretty confused as to whether the Utopian future it was suggesting at the end was a good thing or a bad thing.