Megalopolis review: 'a glorious testament to the value of dreaming big'

Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum in MegalopolisAubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum in Megalopolis
Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum in Megalopolis | Courtesy of Lionsgate
Francis Ford Coppola’s four-decades-in-the-making sci-fi extravaganza is about as singular, strange and unclassifiable as it’s possible to get, writes Alistair Harkness

Megalopolis (15) ★★★★

The Outrun (15) ★★★★

My Old Ass (15) ★★

The Godfather. The Conversation. The Godfather Part II. Apocalypse Now. When you’re responsible for making four of the greatest American films of all time, one after the other, over a seven-year period, you’re entitled to rest on your laurels. That 85-year-old Francis Ford Coppola never has is one of the reasons his cinematic swan song Megalopolis is such a gloriously outré testament to the value of dreaming big.

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In the twilight of a career characterised by excess, hubris, grandiose cinematic visions, small experimental works, huge successes and spectacular failures, his self-financed, four-decades-in-the-making sci-fi extravaganza is about as singular and strange and unclassifiable as it’s possible to get. The instant-reaction online discourse already has it pegged as a divisive love it/hate it triumph/disaster and that seems about right too, given the way this self-styled fable is both a multifaceted exploration of the nature of time, history and our current age of extremes, as well as a comment on its own creation (not to mention a referendum on Coppola’s career as a whole). 

Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina in MegalopolisAdam Driver as Cesar Catilina in Megalopolis
Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina in Megalopolis | Courtesy of Lionsgate

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What it’s not is boring or mediocre. Its characters may talk in riddles, liberally quoting Shakespeare or Marcus Aurelius as they move through a world of Succession-like power and privilege decked out like nouveau Romans transplanted into a version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. But it’s weirdly compelling too, immersing us in a bacchanalian three-ring circus of chaos via a story that takes shape around a battle for the soul of a city being fought over by an idealistic architect called Cesar Cataline (Adam Driver), who’s trying to rebuild the so-called New Rome with a shape-shifting material he’s invented, and New Rome’s mayor, Franklin Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who’s caught between his duty to the people and his efforts to keep the decrepit city working just well enough to survive. There are plenty of aspiring power-mongers on hand too to thicken the plot, chief among them an ambitious TV celebrity called Wow Platinum (a wonderfully sly turn from Aubrey Plaza) and Cicero’s cousin Cloudio (Shia LeBeouf), a jealous, craven fool with a dangerous Trumpian edge. (There are juicy cameos as well for Coppola peers Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight.)

As you’d expect from Coppola, this is all rendered as a cinematic feast for the eyes, be it the organic-tinged retro-futurist designs he’s contrived for the living, breathing, eponymous utopia Cesar is trying to construct, or the way he’s incorporated real cities like New York (including footage he shot for this in the run-up to and aftermath of 9/11) into the world he’s conjured on screen. 

Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero and Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Cicero in MegalopolisNathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero and Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Cicero in Megalopolis
Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero and Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Cicero in Megalopolis | Courtesy of Lionsgate

What it all adds up to is a little harder to parse, especially on a single viewing, and Driver’s character — who has an unexplained ability to pause time —  remains a bit of a mystery: the hints of Robert Moses-style arrogance in his plan to reshape the city are never really interrogated and his complex relationship with his mother (Shire), as well as a frequently hinted-at backstory involving a dead wife and a Chappaquiddick-style scandal, take a back seat to his burgeoning romance with the mayor’s wayward daughter (played by Nathalie Emmanuel). 

But there’s something refreshing about not being beholden to the dull pseudo-realist character development found in most big-budget movies. Coppola may have been dreaming about Megalopolis since the 1980s, but unlike the majority of contemporary cinema on this scale, it’s not reviving a movie or character from that era. At one point Driver’s character repeats the mantra “when we leap into the unknown, we prove that we're free” and it’s hard not to view it as a statement of intent from Coppola. Do yourself a favour: take a leap with him.

Saoirse Ronan in The OutrunSaoirse Ronan in The Outrun
Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun | StudioCanal

Adapted from Scottish author Amy Liptrot’s best-selling memoir of the same name, The Outrun takes a suitably artful approach to Liptrot’s poetic account of her alcoholism and subsequent recovery in the wilds of Orkney. Eschewing addiction drama clichés in favour of something more expressionistic and resonant, the film — directed by Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher) — finds Saoirse Ronan on no-nonsense form as Liptrot stand-in Rona, a 20-something PhD candidate whose youthful hedonism in London has tipped into life-wrecking dependency. 

Woozy camera work puts us in Rona’s boozy headspace early on, but the film also smartly mimics the non-linear structure of the book, flashing elliptically back and forth in the timeline of Rona’s adulthood as she pieces together fractured memories of her black-out years in an effort to rebuild her life one day at a time once she’s back home in Orkney. Mercifully the film avoids pat resolutions, building instead to a symphonic finale that captures the euphoria of a life once again filled with possibilities.

A gay teenager (Maisy Stella) about to leave home for college meets her future self (Aubrey Plaza) in My Old Ass, a high-concept coming-of-age film that inverts the semi-tragic tropes of the coming-out film — in this one, a confident gay girl’s world is turned upside down when she starts to fall for the guy (Percy Hynes White) her older self warns her to avoid. 

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If this makes it sound simultaneously provocative and conservative, it errs on the side of the latter, with its sweet-natured heroine mostly heeding her future self’s advice to be more thoughtful towards her parents and siblings as the film quickly dials down all the drugs, sex and profane teen talk that writer/director Megan Park deploys in the opening act. By the end, it’s like a YA-version of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. 

Megalopolis, The Outrun and My Old Ass are in cinemas from 27 September

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