‘Megalopolis’ review: Francis Ford Coppola’s epic vision is messy and mesmerizing

“Megalopolis” centers around a meeting of minds in conflict.

Frank Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), the mayor of New Rome – a New York-esque city in the near future – frequently clashes with Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) over how to rebuild the dying city to its former glory. Frank remains staunchly committed to the status quo while Cesar dreams of tearing down New Rome’s crumbling walls and building a utopia called Megalopolis.

There is one thing that connects the two men, however – Frank’s daughter and Cesar’s lover, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). In one scene the two men quote philosophy back and forth, both trying to one up the other. Julia interrupts. “Don’t say you’re philosophy,” she says to her father, in particular. “Embody it.”

Julia might as well be saying this to Francis Ford Coppola – the writer, director and funder of “Megalopolis” – himself. And if “Megalopolis” is anything, it’s a director embodying the reputation he’s earned over a decades-long career – with all the mess and glory that entails.

Ahead of the film’s release at the Cannes Film Festival, the press reported on its lengthy and complicated production, and that process has given way to a movie that is equal parts baffling and mesmerizing. A Q&A with Coppola before the film’s screening confirmed what the movie makes clear, that Coppola is worried about the upcoming election – specifically, what Donald Trump’s election might mean for the country – and is considering his place in the world as an artist as a result. In exploring that question, “Megalopolis” is a movie that often rambles, that oscillates from simplistic platitudes to uniquely staggering visual storytelling. It’s a movie that often feels in conflict with itself.

But it’s also a movie from an elder statesman of cinema – the man who made “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The Conversation” – and he still has a bit of a fastball when it comes down to it. It’s confounding. It’s earnest. It’s bloated. It’s monumental. It’s a completely unique theatrical experience, one you aren’t likely to get from anyone else.

Cesar and Frank’s disagreements over how to handle the rebuilding of New Rome form the crux of the film’s plot, but the plot of “Megalopolis” is really beside the point. When the movie doesn’t work (although I’d say it works more often than it doesn’t), it’s all plodding dialogue, delivered by actors who have varying levels of ability to handle the blunt triteness of the words. Driver, in particular, has a lot of fun where he can, letting the dialogue roll around in his mouth and chewing on the meaning before he lets it go (a moment where Cesar tells Julia to “go back to the club” might be the line reading of the year). But some characters can’t be saved, even by the surest of hands – as funny as she is, Aubrey Plaza can’t save a gold digging TV presenter named Wow Platinum from the trappings of the script.

There are moments where “Megalopolis” trudges along, obvious to a fault and only really interesting in spurts. But there’s a point – a wedding celebration at a carnival, to be exact – where the film’s seismic meaning starts to become apparent. You can feel the influence of movements like German Expressionism and silent film, but combined with this outsized, almost superhero-like sensibility. That interest in art and power is evident from moment one – we begin with Cesar, on top of a skyscraper about to step off into the abyss. “Time … stop!” he says, leaving one foot hanging in the balance as time literally stops, everything going quiet around him. Cesar has the power to stop time, the power to manipulate the world around him to his benefit – to give himself time to think, time to live, time to create.

The idea of stopping time, particularly in a film where Coppola is so interested in the artist’s role at the end of empire (whether that artist be Cesar or Coppola himself), is remarkably poignant. It’s also all-powerful in a way that perhaps comes into conflict with other points that arise in “Megalopolis,” and that Coppola himself brought up in the pre-screening Q&A – particularly ideas about debate, and inviting everyone to the table to have a say in the future. Coppola has talked extensively about casting actors from both sides of the political aisle, a strange attempt to prove that we can all get along no matter where we land. Like Coppola, Cesar welcomes debate. But at the end of the day, he is the one who gets his way – most likely, also like Coppola.

The artist in conflict with himself is one of the more fascinating things about “Megalopolis,” far more so than some of the more on-the-nose political allegory, although Coppola’s earnest worry over what November holds is easy to empathize with. There’s a throughline centering Cesar’s cousin Clodio (Shia LaBeouf) that feels like a direct correlation to demagoguery, almost to the point of parody. It’s funny, though – Coppola spends the entirety of the film over-emphasizing this correlation, over-explaining the type of guy Clodio is. But in one scene late in the film, he does it better in about four seconds. Clodio purposefully drops his hat on the ground and yells at a lackey following behind him to pick it up. The lackey scrambles to do so while throwing his own hat on the ground, telling the man behind him to get that hat. That lackey follows suit, and round and round the pattern goes.

With that scene, and in a multitude of other moments throughout “Megalopolis,” Coppola is at his best when dialogue is minimal, when he allows the thematic construction of the visuals to do all the talking. Giant stone monuments crumbling under the weight of their creators’ self-importance, weary from a millennia of history. A satellite crashing down into New Rome, illuminating the shadows of citizens on buildings, large and cowering in the face of destruction. This is what makes “Megalopolis” impossible to ignore, impossible to throw away as simply Coppola’s last ditch effort. And even if it is, it’s quite the gasp.

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