Megalopolis: A Fable – Dir: Francis Ford Coppola (13th Floor Film Review)

The question on everyone’s lips as we left Auckland’s IMAX cinema last night was…”what did we just see?”

Starring: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmaneul, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight

 

What we saw was Francis Ford Coppola’s long-in-making, personally-financed passion project finally come to the big screen.

This “Roman Epic set in an imagined Modern America” was postponed after 911, due to the film’s plot, such as it is, mirroring real life events of the time.

The film still has many parallels to current events (namely the US Presidential election), but perhaps Coppola felt he could no longer wait.

I took a sneak peak at a couple of reviews on my phone while waiting to enter the cinema last night. The first reviewer was calling Megalopolis a “masterpiece”. Swiping down and the next review was less effusive, labelling the film a “zero-star, wacko disaster”.

After sitting through the film’s 138 minutes, I have to say they are both correct…depending on where you happen to be in this very long, very big, very convoluted film.

The negative aspects show up early…

Why is Adam Driver, who is the main character, Cesar Catilina (possibly based a bit on Elon Musk) suddenly quoting Shakespeare? Not just a line or two, but the entire “To be or not to be” soliloquy. I’m mean, its great writing, but that’s not what we’re here for.

Otherwise Driver’s performance is admirable, which is more than I can say for Nathalie Emmaneul (Game Of Thrones) who plays Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter and (one of) Cesar’s love interests. Her performance is so bland, so emotion-free as to come off as almost a parody of bad acting… I can imagine the cast of SNL digging into this.

There is no point in going through the film’s “plot”, but rather to say it is Shakespearian, Orwellian, Hitchcockian, Lynchian and Roman…often all at the same time.

It is a wonder to watch, especially of the IMAX screen, and there were times that I found myself genuinely moved. There are also moments when you realize this “fantasy” hits very close to reality.

I did enjoy Shia LaBeouf’s Trump-like character hanging upside down by his ankles.

The most entertaining performance comes from Aubrey Plaza who plays Wow Platinum…yes, that’s supposedly her name…a TV reporter who gets too close to the news she covers, to the point where she marries Jon Voight!

If none of this makes sense, then I’ve captured the essence of Megalopolis.

I’ve read that we “owe it to Francis Ford Coppola” to take his vanity project seriously after all the truly great film he has given us.

Maybe that is so. I will say I was glad to have seen Megalopolis, I didn’t feel I wasted my time, but 12 hours later, I’m still asking myself, “what did I just see?”

Marty Duda

 

Megalopolis opens in cinemas today

Click here for tickets and showtimes.