Writer-director Francis Ford Coppola describes his decades-long passion project Megalopolis as being “America as Rome.” He also calls his story about how empires fall a “fable” in the film’s title card. But that’s only one of the ways he wants us to think about his movie. His official YouTube account also said the main character, Adam Driver’s Cesar, is “clearly an avatar of Coppola himself – a grand visionary witnessing a once-great thing (call it cinema if you must) withering before his very eyes and determined to revivify it.” When you spend $120 million of your own money, you can say whatever you want about your film, but that doesn’t make it true. And Megalopolis doesn’t work as a fable about the fall of empires anymore than it works as an analogy about the movie industry. It’s an incoherent, contradictory mess that completely undermines the very things Coppola claims its about.
And I am so very glad it exists. Because as far as incoherent messes go few have ever been as gorgeous, captivating, interesting, or well-acted.
Editor’s Note: There are some overarching plot points discussed so please proceed with caution!
Megalopolis takes place in New Rome. It’s a modern blend of New York City mixed with the ancient capital’s aesthetics and traditions. However, it is very much set in the America of today. There are clear references to a certain divisive political figures and his attempts to overthrow American democracy. New Rome also suffers from the same basic problems all major cities have throughout history. It’s dealing with multiple issues like housing, food, and basic services. The problem—which is strangely underdeveloped—is that a select few have so much while so many have so little. The city is overrun by inequality lorded over by greedy oligarchs.
The film features two rich factions. The first are powerful politicians with uber-wealthy friends eager to game the system for their advantage. They’re led by New Rome’s wildly unpopular mayor, the typically fantastic Giancarlo Esposito’s Francis Cicero. The film’s other oligarch elites are a banking family overflowing with vapid, incestuous, cavorting offspring who most feel like they came straight from Ancient Rome’s wildest parties. They’re headed by Jon Voight’s Hamilton Crassus III.
Then there’s Driver’s Cesar, “a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future” free of the shackles and self-imposed limits society has wrongly decided it must abide by. Megalopolis‘ synopsis also tells us his “opposition” is Mayor Cicero, a man “who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.”
Except, that’s not even remotely what the movie presents! Cesar is no troubled hero. He’s just another rich asshole who can’t control his worst impulses and thinks he knows what’s best for everyone. He’s also one of the people responsible for crippling inequality. Cesar is the super wealthy nephew of Crassus. He becomes powerful when he’s given partial autonomy over a city that never elected him to any position of power.
Meanwhile, the supposedly terrible Cicero is mostly guilty of being stuck in the ways of the past. He’s not actively evil. His big fight with Cesar, who is solely focused on the future, is that Cicero is worried about getting people food, shelter, and housing today! That’s his focus, and for that we’re supposed to think he’s an existential threat to society. Meanwhile, the heroic Cesar is destroying entire multi-family buildings without oversight. He’s literally blowing up major apartment complexes while residents protest the loss of their literal homes, and we’re supposed to see him as the good guy!
I promise it’s as ludicrous as it sounds, and for the first hour and a half it feels wonderfully intentional. It’s as though everything Coppola said about his movie was an intentional misdirect, like it’s a setup for people like Elon Musk who talk about colonizing Mars while people on Earth starve.
If the film leaned into this aspect, it would work. The fact it’s so intentionally weird—the movie plays with time and physics and features countless surreal sequences—perfectly adds to that feeling of frenzy the movie exists in. These are all flawed people who only see with tunnel vision, which blinds them to the possibility of making things better. Their singular understanding of the world creates a society bordering on anarchy.
But no, that’s not what happens. This film really does end up being an argument for The Great Man Theory. It’s about how society holds down singular men of genius who are really our only chance for survival from ourselves. It’s so, so bad. And while Coppola thinks his film ends on an incredibly hopeful note, I started laughing as the end credits came up. It’s so absurd for all the wrong reasons. It’s the “ world if” utopia meme the movie.
That’s also why the movie doesn’t work as an analogy about the making of itself. Coppola literally told us Cesar is an avatar of himself, but it’s really hard to argue with the studios that passed on Megalopolis all these years when this is what he made. At its best, it is like the greatest, most expensive film student movie ever made. It’s actively weird and hard to even describe let alone market. It makes a compelling case against its own existence as a studio film that cost anything more than $10-15 million to make.
(Note: If Cesar is “clearly an avatar of Coppola” I am sorry for Francis Ford’s loved ones because I wouldn’t want to spend five minutes alone with Cesar. For the record, I don’t think Cesar is actually anything like Coppola, who always comes across as far kinder and compassionate than his character.)
Even before seeing Megalopolis, it was interesting that Coppola wanted to make a movie about “how empires fall” and “America as Rome,” but decided to name his main character Caesar, the man who ended the Roman Republic. America might be a de facto empire, but at the moment it’s still a Republic. Why do we want someone to end it? Because we deem one person “great?” Who makes that call? In the film, no one in New Rome does, and this is supposedly the best thing that ever happened to anyone? It makes no sense because it makes no sense in the movie.
So why am I so very glad a movie with terrible politics and ideas that is quite literally at odds with itself in every way possible exists? Because it’s totally captivating! It’s like a train that crashed yet somehow the wreckage twisted into a beautiful grotesque sculpture. This is a Movie with a capital “m,” the kind of ambitious, wild, bonkers big swings I wish we got in theaters every month.
For one, it looks incredible. Coppola delivers some truly breathtaking sequences and shots. He also employs symbolism, analogy, and surrealism throughout without worrying if everyone will get their meaning initially. At times, its messages and ideas are as blunt as a hammer to the head, but other times it is aggressively difficult to access. Sometimes it holds your hand. Other times it throws you off a cliff into a dark pit. The more inaccessible elements make me want to watch it 50 more times.
It’s so strange that I want to pick up on everything I missed so I can then over analyze their purpose. I want to read this script like it’s this semester’s only reading material. I ultimately want to dissect Megalopolis so much I talk myself into it actually being a genius masterpiece. (It’s not! And no amount of time will change that.) But it’s such an engrossing, chaotic work of art, it had me completely invested in it. Even when I started laughing at during act three, I was into it.
It also features an amazing cast delivering superb performances. Driver is wonderfully weird, off-putting, and totally mesmerizing. Nathalie Emmanuel’s Julia, the daughter of Mayor Cicero who goes to work for Cesar, is completely charming and is the only likable character. That’s not easy, either, since she’s tasked with the impossible: convincing us Cesar is super great. Jon Voight and Shia LeBeouf, much to the chagrin of many, are also both incredible. (Voight notably delivers one of the best drunk acting scenes ever and LeBeouf is perfect as the most despicable, ambitious failson in the city.)
Aubrey Plaza also gives a standout performance as business “reporter” Wow Platinum. SNL‘s Chloe Fineman also works perfectly as Crassus’ granddaughter who seems to have no real moral compass and just likes doing stuff. Talia Shire shows up for a few scenes as Cesar’s mom and throws 99 mph every time. She’s really fantastic. That’s especially impressive since it’s not clear why her character is in this movie at all. But that’s true for lots of things in this film. Why does anything that happens happen? Why is an uncaring jerk who views peoples’ needs for food and shelter as obstacles? And how did Francis Ford Coppola spend literally decades thinking about this movie only to make something that actively argues against the the very things he claims it’s about?
None of that matters. Even asking those questions misses the point as much as Coppola did with his film. Because while Megalopolis is not a good movie, it’s an amazing movie experience. It’s a visually stunning, interesting mess that demands you pay attention to it. For its flaws as much as its strengths. And just like Ancient Rome, we’ll be studying it long after other empires fall.
(Note: Megalopolis as an overall movie-watching experience is actually 4.5 stars for me.)
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist already planning his second viewing of Megalopolis. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.