"Megalopolis"

  ☆☆½ 

After seeing Megalopolis, the film director Francis Ford Coppola has been dreaming about for 45 years, I searched the Internet for articles about the plot of the movie I had just watched. I wanted to be sure of what I had seen. After reading many of these articles, the only thing I am sure of is that nobody is sure of exactly what they saw happen in Megalopolis.

I had read that there were characters, ideas and entire plot points that somehow go missing in Megalopolis, but I was loathe to believe it because Francis Ford Coppola may have a history as a maverick filmmaker but he is a good filmmaker. He is always interesting. Some of his movies are among the most literate pieces of cinema you'll ever want to see.

But, in fact, Megalopolis has characters, ideas and entire plot points that somehow go missing. The whole movie is a weird, put-it-all-in-a-blender kind of affair — you can make out specific ingredients, but only for a moment, as they swirl together into something else, something that, it must be said, is disappointingly bland and probably not very nutritious.

But there are visions! Oh, there are visions. And there are ideas! Oh, there are ideas. A lot of them, it appears, have to do with ancient Roman history, and forgive me for being an ignorant American but I am not as well versed in the nuances of intrigue in Rome nearly 2,000 years ago. That's on me. I've got to go with what I see in front of me, and what I might gather it means from the character names, the ways of dress, and the fact that New York is referred to here as New Rome. To quote Close Encounters of the Third Kind: "This means something."

Just what it means isn't readily clear. Better to just watch. The images are strong, powerful, sometimes surprising and often beautiful (though, it must be said, once in a while cheap-looking). They are all in service of a story that follows a visionary architect and, apparently, chemist who has won the Nobel Prize for creating a revolutionary new building material. He wants to use it to remove urban blight (never mind that people live in what he considers the blight) in New Rome, but the corrupt mayor isn't having it. His wild-child daughter decides he likes the architect, who can stop time—literally, except not literally, well, sort of. There are some other characters. A lot of them. Like the crazy banker who runs New Rome and gets married to a media personality name Wow Platinum. 

Yes, there is a character named Wow Platinum.

Adam Driver is the architect, Giancarlo Esposito is the mayor, Nathalie Emmanuel is the daughter, Aubrey Plaza is Wow Platinum. Aubrey Plaza is a performer with near-perfect taste. She is good in almost everything. Note that I said "near-perfect" and "almost." Francis Ford Coppola must have made her a deal she couldn't resist for this one. The movie also features Laurence Fishburn in a minor role and also as the narrator, who reads words that appear on screen, rather unhelpfully. Dustin Hoffman pops up for a couple of scenes of attempted flamboyance, and Shia LaBeouf rather quizzically spends most of his time in drag. Nothing is explained. Nothing at all.

Let me say that again: Nothing in Megalopolis is explained. Maybe Coppola felt explanations are for dumb people. That may well be. I felt pretty dumb watching a lot of Megalopolis. I didn't understand what I was looking at, but it was mostly pretty and almost never boring, and when I went to bed afterward I was discomfited to find that in my dreams were some of the buildings and characters and cityscapes I had just watched. It worked its way into my brain, and on that level, I guess Coppola has done something few filmmakers get a chance to do. It also appears he made exactly the movie he wanted. I hope he did. I hope he feels satisfied in a way most audiences will likely not.

Viewed October 27, 2024 — AMC Burbank 8

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