Megalopolis (2024)
I saw Megalopolis in a reasonably full screening room, and by the end the prevailing sense among my fellow audience members, including me, was, “Let me OUT.”
Why? The. Cotton. Picking. Thing. Never. Ends. OK, yes, it does end eventually, but it feels never-ending. Eeeek.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a screening room empty so fast, and a lot of these audience members were seniors. Some of them were even using walkers and canes. Didn’t matter, though. As soon as those ending credits rolled, whoosh. They were gone.
So, yeah. Where to start?
Megalopolis, which takes place in New York City except that it’s called New Rome, seems to be four movies rolled into one. Part of it is a cautionary tale linking the fall of Rome to America’s current political climate and popular culture, with all the decadence and carelessness that entails. Another part is the rivalry between Cesar Catalina and Mayor Cicero, with Catalina’s uncle, Cassus controlling the city’s largest bank. Catalina’s cousin, Clodio and his desire to take Catalina down is another plot. Yet another part is Catalina’s invention of a substance called Megalon, which allows him to stop time and which he plans to use to build a new city.
Any one of those plots, or maybe two of them, would have made for a very interesting movie. Obviously, it’s not unusual for movies to have complex storylines, but Megalopolis’s biggest flaws are its excesses and lack of a plumbline.
It’s as if Francis Ford Coppola, the man who brought us cultural leviathans such as The Godfather and beautifully simple movies like The Black Stallion was trying his hardest to make a 90s-era Baz Luhrmann film, only with slower cuts and less tweaking of the frame rates.
To be fair, there are a lot of good moments. The part when Adam Driver as Catalina recites the “To be or not to be” speech from Hamlet? More of that, please. The relationship between he and Julia? Absolutely. The sweet father-daughter relationship between Julia and her dad, Cicero? Definitely. Cassus revealing that he’s still a force to be reckoned with despite being frail and ailing? Yep. The stylized scenes of Catalina’s new city? Bring it on. The warning about what happens to nations when hedonism takes over? That’s needed, too.
Coppola also effectively shows how calloused New Rome is, with incestuous relationships, malignant selfishness, and children taking part in activities that should give adults pause. We see how that loss of innocence contributes to a society’s lack of stability and morals based on absolute truths. We see buildings smashed to rubble, with a piece of the wreckage clearly showing a hammer and sickle, a pointed jab at the former Soviet Union and current-day Russia. There’s even a scene of an Elvis impersonator singing on the street while clutching a mussed American flag, as if to say America is a relic although not irredeemable. As long as we can ask questions, we can have utopia.
Free speech is a good thing. Who knew?
Too bad what little good messaging the film has gets lost in too many tonal shifts and too many crowds of revelers licking various substances off of each other’s bellies while imbibing assorted spirits. Or in a certain graphic sex scene involving Clodio and his stepmom, the irrationally jealous and conniving Wow Platinum. Oddly enough, she’s meant to be comic relief on the line of Jean Harlow, but she’s just repulsive.
What’s interesting is that even if Catalina’s utopia comes to pass, he and his family will always be the elites. Megalopolis’s utopia doesn’t mean a complete leveling of hierarchy, but merely a kinder, gentler one. Whether or not it remains as such is the unanswered question, but seeing as the film is meant to be a fable, the future isn’t exactly a mystery. Given the frailty and degeneracy of human nature, the cycle of rising and collapsing of nations will continue as it has throughout history.
I really wish Coppola hadn’t taken on so much when making Megalopolis, but if he means it to be his swan song, it’s quite a tune to go out on.
Megalopolis is currently in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: D for the sum total, A for effort
Principal Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney, Isabelle Kusman, Bailey Ives, Madeleine Gardella, Balthazar Getty
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.