Megalopolis
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There is a clash of agendas in New Rome, Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) interested in investing in casinos, a bread and circus approach to oppress the masses, while the director of the Design Authority, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), envisions a utopian conversion of the city he wishes to call “Megalopolis.”
Laura's Review: C+
Writer/director Francis Ford Coppola long simmering passion project, the one he sold a vineyard to finance, finally arrives and while it is often incomprehensible it is certainly never boring. I’m glad I saw it, but this one is probably only for hard core cinephiles.
Cesar’s driver? assistant? Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne) narrates much of the story, filling us in at the onset about how empires fall as we watch Cesar inch out atop the Chrysler Building (New Rome is essentially New York City), raise one foot over the edge, and stop time. He’ll do this again as a slum is demolished, witnessed by an astonished Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, who decides to interview the man and ends up not only joining his cause, but becoming his lover. Complicating things, when he was the DA, her dad charged Cesar with murdering his wife, whose body has never been found.
Characters wearing Caesar haircuts and Roman togas intermingle with those in modern attire. Coppola presents big, intellectual ideas, Cesar quoting ‘Hamlet’ and philosophers, juxtaposed with naïveté. Amateurish filmmaking on the streets of New York is contrasted with intriguing special effects, giant statues representing Justice crumbling to the sidewalks, Cesar’s visions rendered with gauzy CGI. Stripped down sets – such as suspended rigging in an empty space – butt up against lush production design. Committed performances from Driver and the weirdly watchable Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher, the corrupt, fey rival for Julia’s hand, intermingle with SNL’s Chloe Fineman blowing a line reading. Maybe Coppola planned all these contradictions, as he noted in the Q&A before the NYFF screening that he had cast actors of different political ideologies (we’re looking at you Jon Voight, as the somewhat addled acting Hamilton Crassus III, Cesar’s bank owning uncle) who all managed to work together.
Cesar will be dogged by his former lover, financial television host ‘Wow Platinum (a tart Aubrey Plaza), who marries his uncle in a plot with Clodio to take over the man’s bank. Cesar gets drunk at their wedding where Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal) performs to raise funds and Clodio broadcasts a doctored video showing Cesar in bed with her (Vesta, a purported sixteen year old vestal virgin, is outed as twenty-three and radically changes her image).
Cesar has an odd relationship with his mother, Constance Crassus Catilina (Talia Shire), for who knows what reason, while the mayor’s wife Teresa (Kathryn Hunter, charming) is more open to ideas than her husband. Shire’s son, Coppola’s nephew Jason Schwartzman, marches in the street and plays the drums. Dustin Hoffman lingers around the edges as a nefarious fixer.
And then everything ends happily ever after. This is one odd duck, yet far from Coppola’s worst film, just one that feels like it has been fussed over for far too long. “Megalopolis,” though, will certainly retain a place in cinema history from its auteur’s refracted vision to his reported behavior on the set to its controversial trailer touting made up critics’ quotes.
Robin's Review: C+
The City of New Rome is in turmoil. A brilliant and popular architect, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), pushes for a utopian future, while greedy Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) wants to maintain the corrupt status quo. Between them, trying to make peace, is the mayor’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), in “Megalopolis.”
I am not sure if I would call Francis Ford Coppola’s latest opus “eagerly anticipated,” what with all of the problematic controversy surrounding “Megalopolis.” It is an ambitious work that does have a story of a power struggle between the new, rising regime and the old. Unfortunately, it is so buried in bright lights and bombast it is tedious to sort out.
The struggle has Cesar, the rising and ambitious star in New Rome, with designs, literally, on Mayor Cicero’s corrupt regime. Julia, the beautiful daughter of the mayor, loves Cesar and hopes to be the go between and peacemaker with her father. That is, pretty much, the main story.
If that were the case, we could have been in and out of the theater in 90 minutes, tops. But, with Francis spending an estimated $100+ million of his own money, you can expect more, not in story but in colors and lights and noise. There is an embarrassment of riches, cast-wise, with such luminaries as Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Shia LeBeouf, Jason Schwartzmann, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney and Aubrey Plaza – most of whom were just “there” without much contribution. LeBeouf, of all, got to put a spin, humor and some flesh and bone to his ambitious character.
“Megalopolis” may be overblown and messy – not a surprise from the director but a disappointment – but it kept my attention, mostly, for its two hour and 18 minutes. I found myself reflecting more on the filmmaker and why he made this mess (my guess is ego). It is ambitious but I did not find it particularly necessary.
Lionsgate releases "Megalopolis" in theaters on 9/27/24.