‘Megalopolis’ REVIEW: Not enough time to hold, even less to reclaim
‘Megalopolis’ Review: Not enough time to hold, even less to reclaim
Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) visits a dazzling flower shop amid a bleak cityscape | Still taken from IMDb
There is always time to lose, but none for the weight of an artist's ambitions. It's a latent symptom of their worries and anxieties, emerging only when mortality is involved and most acutely felt. Nothing persists like time, and neither do the insatiable pursuits against stagnation. It can be a determining factor, driving an artist toward both great potential and madness, but never the nail in a ready-made coffin.
The brilliant and mercurial mind behind some of cinema’s greatest achievements — The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now — knows this better than anyone in today's industry. So much so that he would bid all of his remaining time and money to self-fund a passion project that has languished in development for more than 40 years due to numerous rewrites and a pursuit of perfection. Francis Ford Coppola, now in his 80s, offers more than a piece of himself through the truly divisive beauty that is Megalopolis.
A man entirely clad in romanticism and firm ideals, Coppola's obsession with forward thinking has long defined him as an infamous eccentric in a medium often steeped in questions of its own cultural weight, now seemingly at a standstill. He constantly tries to push the envelope, confronting what truly defines the essence of a film. Even if he's not always successful, the language he seeks to invent speaks for itself — profusely chaotic, but above all, genuine.
Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emanuel) reassures Cesar, who is struggling with his doubts, by giving him a kiss / Still taken from IMDb
In Megalopolis, everything is laid bare, more visible than ever before. Not only does it find itself aimlessly revolving in an axis of continuous self-indulgence and reinvention, it also stumbles over clusters of recurring issues in production and crew management, alongside allegations of Coppola's misconduct. With the disheartening news of Eleanor Coppola's passing, the auteur's wife and lifetime creative partner, the film bears a heavy gravitas, grappling with the hungry talents and follies of its creator, as well as the resultant excess of its inception.
The risk and potential mess surrounding this decades-in-the-making "dream script" have always been palpable, and the added news of Coppola's alleged mistreatment of female actresses has only heightened concerns.
Although these allegations have been denied by the staff and actresses involved, I found it difficult to overlook the fact that, within the first fifteen minutes of Megalopolis, excessive female sexualization quickly invades the scenes and continues throughout the film. It’s all highly exaggerated and, at times, embarrassingly for the sake of petty comedy. The film leans too much on the notion of great men needing the life-changing love of a woman, even when women are so shallowly framed through the intent.
This leads me to wonder whether it's only a dream to have both substantive artistry and holistic integrity as a creative under the 2024 climate.
In line with this thought, Megalopolis dreams on a grander scale, becoming almost self-aware of its inflated, caricatured portrayal of ambition as a character in its own right. It positions itself as a lifetime's worth of self-study, operating under the guise of an Ancient Rome narrative where a civilization collapses due to both subdued internal and external decay. Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver), whose name is obviously a wordplay like many others in the film, can stop time, but he also seeks to prevent the foreseeable doom of his world through his novelty and genius as an acclaimed artist who has just won the Nobel Prize.
Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) dismisses the utopia being built by Megalon — the radical discovery that Cesar insistently proposes to the masses as their world's beacon of hope — and is indifferent to the thought of his daughter, Julie Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), being involved with the creator of such technology, which resembles magic. This dynamic kept me on my toes, even though the film is made in the broadest of strokes.
Cesar, while under the influence, reflects on his duality as a known creative genius | Still taken from IMDb
The plot lacks cohesion, and I believe the film is aware of this, albeit in strange ways. The presence of Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) and Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) hammer this point home, as their performances inject humor into the film that pinches the itch. I haven’t laughed this much in a theater in years. It’s executed with such ravishing obviousness that it's clearly intended as satire. Even the name “Wow Platinum” suggests this, and even more so when Clodio opens his mouth and sticks his tongue on the silliest lines.
Beneath the veneer of perceived seriousness, Megalopolis critiques political issues and current trends, using humor to make its commentary both engaging and memorable. While the inconsistent quality of the visual effects may turn some viewers off, it ultimately enhances the film’s playful energy and one-of-a-kind identity.
What’s most striking is that these subpar visuals elevate the scenes where Coppola delivers some of the most wondrous fever dreams ever put to film — part carefree experimentation, part sheer passion. They are, in a literal sense, so otherworldly that I was awestruck for minutes. There's even a segment where there should have been a face-to-face interview with a real audience in front of the big screen, but this was not included in the Philippine screening, which is unfortunate.
Viewing the film as a fable, told in a childlike storybook fashion brimming with immense artistic caliber, proves more rewarding than taking it as seriously as it tries to be for satirical purposes.
The overall story is not effective enough to have the barrier-breaking pull of Coppola's previous classics. It’s needlessly propulsive in form but messy in structure, with skeletal subplots. With a message so delicate and essential, the execution is puzzling but respectably daring nonetheless. Somehow, it all worked for me in the end, but not entirely. It left me picking up jigsaw pieces that were painfully shoved after completion.
It’s overambitious but unsatisfying. It's full of symbols without shape and promises without consistency. However, I enjoyed how much laughs I got out of it coupled with the amusement from gorgeous visual candies. And that's about it.
At the end of the day, Francis Ford Coppola truly believes in love — and that’s sweet and all — but Megalopolis shows that he believes in his auteurist talent even more, to a frustrating degree. It’s a message intended for everyone, but it mostly serves as a tailored dish for himself. Because decorating confusion is not the same as provoking thought.
Megalopolis is worth watching, but not worth spending the extra time to think about.
