Without getting too ahead of ourselves, it is entirely possible that we will one day look back on Megalopolis as a masterpiece in the vein of Apocalypse Now or The Godfather 2, just in the complete opposite direction.
In essence, Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project of fifty plus years is a genuinely novel work of satirical Americanism, but it is also one compiled largely from a hodge-podge of nonsensical rhetoric, hostile performances and any number of other inane innovations. Next-to-nothing about the film works as it should, yet one cannot help but feel a sense of triumph that Coppola got to make it all.
It would be unfair to say Megalopolis is without a vision, rather it contains one that its director has little interest in ever sharing with his audience. Instead, Coppola’s ‘New Rome’ epic weaves together several dozen thematic threads with precisely the elegance you might expect from an 85-year-old man under the influence of eight different substances at a given moment. It is a film as consistently blunt as it is bewildering; from cutaway death scenes to a flash in the pan subplot about deep fakes, you will never be unsure as to what’s going on, but you will always be asking why.
At the best of times, this affords the film an almost beautiful sincerity. Not one character among the project’s expansive ensemble operates in half-measures. Every movement and decision feels driven by visceral and carnal desire, giving off the illusion of poetry if not the art itself. It would be a stretch to say Coppola achieves an emotional response here, but for every cringe-inducing speech from Shia LaBoeuf (in a career-worst turn), there is the oddly poignant image of a dropped bouquet suspended in time over the New Rome skyline.
There is a romance to the failings of Megalopolis, ironically the sort that would drive its perfectionist hero to madness. As the film repeats incessantly from start to finish, the idea of Utopia isn’t that of a flawless world, rather one that gets you asking the right questions. In this case, my main question concerns Coppola’s dealer, and whether he can get me to Megalopolis too.
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