The Flawed Utopia of Megalopolis: Why Bigger isn’t Always Better
“People don’t need dreams. People need help now.”
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a $120 million passion project that left many viewers mourning the past 138 minutes of their life.
Given Coppola’s credentials, one can understand the excitement of film fanatics when the making of Megalopolis was announced. Amongst Spielberg and Scorsese, Coppola is widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is best known for his iconic work in the 1970s: The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979). At age 85, he is the owner of five Academy Awards; six Golden Globes; a BAFTA Award; several family-friendly wineries; and a cannabis brand known as The Grower’s Series. A jack of all trades.
Why, then, is Megalopolis being regarded as the grandest box office flop of 2024?
The film imagines an alternate United States, New Rome, which is dominated by an elite group of patrician families. While ordinary Romans live in poverty, the elite enjoy a life of decadence (a concept that is perhaps not too dystopian!). An ambitious architect/egomaniac, Cesar Catilina, proposes building ‘Megalopolis’, a utopian city. He faces resistance, but ultimately succeeds, rebuilding the city and creating a ‘better future’. The film explores the tension between idealism and pragmatism, blending classical influences with modern struggles.
In a Guardian article, Peter Bradshaw describes Megalopolis as “megabloated” and “megaboring”. Bradshaw was harsh, but was he wrong? For me, Megalopolis is a disordered disaster that makes shallow and vainly optimistic remarks about humanity’s future. It is a series of threads that dance around one another, but never seem to tie together. It seems like Coppola bit off more than he was prepared to chew.
That said, there are elements that resist the “megaboring” denomination.
Right from the start, Megalopolis self-references as a fable: it understands the responsibility of that title, and it rises to the occasion. Coppola highlights the consequences of unchecked power. The focus on the Roman elite while the working class suffer offers sobering commentary on the uneven distribution of wealth and power that becomes even more pertinent in light of the recent US election. Coppola himself says, “to do a Roman epic set in modern America, I had no idea that the politics of today would make that so relevant” (2024).
The three male protagonists, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) and Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), epitomise male greed: three men intent on enriching themselves and asserting their political dominance. Crassus (Voight), the world’s richest man, represents everything wrong with New Rome: he is a morally corrupt narcissist obsessed with growing his own fortune. Ironically, Voight is an avid follower of Donald Trump, calling himself “Hollywood’s most outspoken Trump supporter” (2024).
Despite his egocentric tendencies, Cesar’s relationship with time almost makes Megalopolis worth the watch. His secret ability to stop time seems to be a metaphor for the artistic process: “artists can never lose track of time”.
Like many other aspects of this film, this element felt incomplete, forgotten about after the initial revelation. Still, the notion that art, and artists, have the ability to stop or control time is rather wholesome.
Megalopolis is a film that Coppola has been wanting to create since 1977. He attempted to produce it in 1989 and 2001, but both times he was refused. Surprisingly, studios did not want to finance this highly experimental project. Finally, after acquiring a large fortune in the winemaking business, Coppola decided to self-fund. To say that it was a self-funded project is not to say that he lacked resources (he had $120 million to play with, let’s not forget); but, it had its limitations. And while 138 minutes felt like a lifetime for anyone who went to see it in theatres, another hour or so would have been necessary to better flesh out the many untied threads.
The ending came with no real explanation of anything. Cesar, somehow, achieves his utopia; so, while it was a win for the billionaire megalomaniac, for everyone else, we can’t be sure.
I commend Coppola’s artful optimism. There is something to be said for seeking beyond the ordinary, and perhaps Megalopolis leaves audiences a little more willing to believe in a better future. Unfortunately, Coppola does little to convince me that rich narcissists are the way forward.
Words by Elysha Din