Francis Ford Coppola directs Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel and Aubrey Plaza in this epic speculative fantasy where wealthy families attempt to rebuild a parallel dimension version of New York in their own images while also attempting to destroy each other via scandal and violence.

So clearly the vision of a different era. This shares the artificial fakery of The Phantom Menace or Batman & Robin. The bankrupting idiosyncratic vision of Toys. The Shakespearean remixing of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. And the old fart’s idea of horniness like the flat, cold and camp Eyes Wide Shut. If all but one of your cultural touchstones are follies from the 1990s then why now?

Coppola has been thinking about Megalopolis since little Larry Fishburne was a teen in Apocalypse Now and nearing his life expectancy he has sold the vineyard to make it. Not that the 120 million smackeroos are all up there on screen. Clearly a Redux or a complete saga version are in the offing. The movie only briefly alludes to some other events that were obviously filmed. It is hard to tell if the third act is rushed or just hits the brakes when it reaches a certain runtime limit and then tacks on a scene of jubilant happy ending. There are lengthy theatrical scenes where the entire cast perform to each other, triptychs of visual poetry that recall Abel Gance and montages that do mood board poetry in place of narrative storytelling. Only about one in three scenes truly work in a traditional sense but even the daft, unfinished blurts are so compelling that you cannot take your eyes from them. I genuinely did not want to miss a single second as it was either wildly unpredictable or masterfully spectacular. The bidding on the virgin megastar’s “pledge” sequence at Madison Square Gardens is pure cinema.

There is just around as much to hate about Megalopolis as there is to love. Driver puts in one of his best performances. Yet only in certain moments as he feels like he is playing different characters every fade out. The ensemble is deep and truly impressive. Aubrey Plaza’s femme fatale villain is a highlight – funny and sexy, even more so than you’d expect. If you’ve sat through Twixt or Youth Without Youth you’ll be surprised at how judicious the use of green screen and cheap CGI is. It is still leaned into but not to the point where the artifice obliterates all sense of investment in the story. Coppola’s unlikely last epic is easy to deride and wears its strange dying heart on its sleeve. But there’s enough entertainment and wonder and intelligence and bravery here that I’d deep dive into it again. Will it be rediscovered as a lost classic?… Ha! Probably not… Is it an ageing master’s Citizen Kane?… It is a wonky try at the pinnacle of his idea of cinematic greatness.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Youth Without Youth (2007)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin