First Look: ‘Megalopolis’

“Mega-flop-olis!” That groaning zinger was the knee-jerk remark on the lips of a few snarky journalists earlier this week at the Cannes Film Festival, a Twitterized prediction for a sprawling movie yet to be seen. Thursday witnessed the world premiere of Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s grandiose, earnest, self-described “fable” about everyone’s favorite dying empire: the United States of America. Could the storied Oscar-winning octogenarian filmmaker—who personally bankrolled the entire $120 million passion project—really pull it off? The short answer: not really. Megalopolis is one mega-messy movie. But it’s also one from the heart—a sui generis sweeping-canvas summary statement from one of America’s greatest writer-directors.

Come for the promise of epic insights into human civilization, stay for the camp-classic catnip moments. Adam Driver randomly bursting into Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Aubrey Plaza yelling “Dammit, Jerry!” in a Parks and Rec shout-out no one asked for, a bed-ridden Jon Voigt pointing to his alarmingly pointy bulge and saying “What do you think of this boner I got?” And everything Shia LaBeouf: cross-dressing Shia in Caligula drag, complete with lace-up lamé heels; eyebrowless Shia as a sweaty Studio 54 party boy; muff-diving horndog Shia hungrily eating out Plaza right after he cries, ‘I want to fuck you so bad, Auntie Wow!” 

Is the movie still worth seeing? Absolutely. In a shoot-the-moon way, in a rubbernecking-dumpster-fire way, in an auteurist-appreciation way, in an hunger-for-originality way. Big swings deserve big audiences, so witnesses can razz it, defend it, cheer and boo it to their heart’s content. One thing’s for sure: Megalopolis is never boring. 

This fitfully dazzling, often stultifying sci-fi drama is bursting with ideas but sadly lacking in any compelling drama. It’s like a Cliff Notes version of itself. The loosely defined plot ostensibly focuses on an empire-worthy tug-of-war between visionary city planner Cesar Catilina (Driver) and cynical, compromising Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) over the future of a New York-styled metropolis called New Rome. Adding tension is Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the Mayor’s daughter, who convinces Cesar to let her be his assistant—and possibly even his lover. 

Orbiting this interpersonal dynamic is Clodio Pulcher (LaBeouf), Cesar’s lecherous dilettante cousin, a chaos agent eager to sabotage; and Wow Platinum (Plaza), a financial news host nicknamed the Money Bunny who is Cesar’s mistress as well as the future wife of geriatric billionaire banker Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). 

Coppola clansfolk pop up, naturally, like Talia Shire as Cesar’s mother and Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zandrez, one of the Mayor’s aides. There’s also stalwart Coppola veteran Lawrence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine, Cesar’s right-hand man; Balthazar Getty as Clodio’s right-hand man; SNL castmember Chloe Fineman as one of Julia’s louche cocaine-licking club girls; and Dustin Hoffman as Nush Berman, a fixer for the Mayor, who interjects bon mots like “concrete, concrete, concrete” and “steel, steel, steel.” 

What do any of them really do? Not much, aside from jeer, laugh, mutter, strut, ponder, scheme and generally look a bit glassy-eyed at the circus maximus surrounding them.

Cesar is the chairman of the Design Authority—think Robert Moses, but with a more altruistic sense of purpose—while Mayor Cicero suffers headlines like “Feds to City: Drop Dead.” Did I mention all the black-and-white newspapers? So much of this sci-fi mind-bender still exists in a world of print media, where people look at the gossip pages and sift through their morning mail over breakfast. Nary a cell phone is in sight, although corded phones abound. This is futurism circa 1989, if not 1969.

The latest cover boy for Tempus Magazine—apologies to Time—is Cesar, who, along with being a genius architect is, apparently, fresh from Stockholm after winning a Nobel Prize for inventing a miracle building material called Megalon. The wonder invention also doubles as haute couture, providing invisible dresses for pop stars. “You can see right through me!” exclaims virginal songtress Vista Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal channeling her inner Taylor Swift), who performs at a benefit concert where rich men offer millions to guarantee her chastity pledge. Does Vista have a sex tape? Of course she does. 

“Don’t let the new destroy the forever!” Cesar exclaims in one of the many intellectual fisticuffs he has with short-sighted Cicero, who wants to build a cash-grab casino on a recently=cleared city lot.

Cesar is a wild child himself, eagerly spinning ambitious urban renewal plans and then going on a drug-fueled bender that ends with him, stripped down to black boxer-briefs, bloodied and staggering down a flight of stairs while opera music swells behind him. His office is in the Chrysler building and he’s haunted by the memory of his deceased wife, Sunny Hope.  These feel like random details because they are, one of many that don’t completely fuse together into any sort of cogent narrative.

The man thrust of Megalopolis is as a soap box for humanity’s ability to rescue itself from oblivion. As a reminder that utopias aren’t meant to provide solutions but to raise questions. That quotes from Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius about civilizations are just as relevant now as they were thousands of years ago. Most of all, it’s a clarifying treatise on the nature of time.

“You can’t beat time and you can’t cheat time,” says Fundi in a delightful wordplay riff on the different linguistic manifestations of temporal experience. Cesar has a never-explained ability to stop time around time. Time is both running out and always in abundance. No matter how quickly life seems to pass, we can always find ways to accomplish what needs to be built. Megalopolis is lunacy on many levels, while also being an ode to hope and justice. Above all, it’s that rare thing: a cautionary tale full of optimism.