movie review: megalopolis

Vanity Fare: Megalopolis
Review by Jeff DeRouen

If aging auteurs want to spend enormous amounts of their own money on an insane magnum opus knowing full well it’ll probably flop (although Kevin Costner has recently elaborated on why preliminary box office is a flawed indicator of a film’s long-term success), I am here for it.

Francis Ford Coppola’s new epic, Megalopolis, is a bold and uplifting tale that, without all the boobs and blood, could be a new classic we see play every year on NBC at Christmas.

The movie follows Cesar (Adam Driver in a fully committed and over the top performance), an eccentric builder who wants to use his magical building material to create a more progressive world to benefit generations. Standing in his way, of course, are folks who have their own designs and desires for power, including Aubrey Plaza who absolutely devours the screen as the scheming and sexy Wow Platinum.
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Megalopolis, for better or worse, is EXACTLY the movie Coppola wanted to make and any “mistake” you see is an intentional choice from one of history’s greatest filmmakers. Is it on the nose? YES. Is it enormously stylistic in both aesthetic and performance? UNBELIEVABLY SO. Does it wear its heart on its sleeve? YOU BETCHA. And all of it culminates in what can only be described as Coppola’s attempt to inject a giant vision and hope into a society that runs on anger, division, and short-term solutions.

I think it’s a masterpiece.