“Megalopolis”: We Should Never Lose Faith in Our Future

Francis Ford Coppola’s epic might not be successful, but it forces us to reckon with our own resentment towards it

In March, I wrote about our current hostility towards curiosity and how we are socialized to only engage with art that is insular and unchallenging, art that accepts cultural boundaries and reaffirms the parameters of our expectations. American cinema is so rife with anti-intellectualism that we’ve labeled those who bother to watch, let alone enjoy, films that dare to indulge in (and expand) their medium as pretentious snobs. 

My experience of watching Megalopolis plainly affirmed how ubiquitous this hostility is. A packed theater erupted and jeered at every other line, performing their ironic enjoyment or their fundamental disgust by throwing a tantrum in response to even the least provocative moments. The audience left no space for contemplation or sympathy for the film — just verbal, joking resentment. 

It’s hard to meet Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Megalopolis in the middle. There’s too much to grasp onto, though somehow not enough, and it only maintains its balance by the momentum of Coppola’s commitment. His pure enthusiasm for the project, funded entirely by his own wine-making fortune, is translated into an overwhelming amalgamation of countless influences, confusing its own words through its intense aesthetic overlap. 

Nothing about Megalopolis is cohesive or smooth — its central figure, scientific mogul Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) resolves nearly every immediate conflict presented to him in his epic dispute over the utopian future of New Rome with Mayor Franklin Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), never to be bothered by them again. But there is a compelling consistency in its pure ambitiousness that prevents it from collapsing, rendering it as less of a narrative and more of a variety show with a broad moral undercurrent. 

But just when you feel as though you can’t see past the film’s mess and chaos, Coppola sculpts moments of singular beauty, daunting scale, or simple humor, personal touches within an otherwise feverish and fable-like blur. Even in his preachy, hybristic, senseless utopia, one can find something to believe in, a reason not to doubt the messiness of his dreamy universe. 

It is in these moments where Coppola’s thesis shines. In all of its hypothesizing about a utopia, Megalopolis mobilizes the audience not to enshrine its image of the future but instead to fight for a future of their own. Coppola doesn’t care if we accept his vision, but he forces us to reckon with the full potential of the medium by presenting a collision of composite ideas that push the boundaries of cinema forward. 

In all its pandemonium and chaos, the question that Megalopolis asks us is quite simple — is it possible to lose faith in our own future? By working outside the restrictions of studio demands, Coppola asks us why we’d even bother to continue if we believe that we’ve exhausted our ability to imagine and innovate. The flashiness of his utopia demonstrates the freedom inherent in the ability to work outside risk-averse and profit-centered parameters, to take chances on creative potential. Megalopolis is far from the future that it longs for, but by blurring every single line it draws, it forces us to reckon with something beyond, or at least to consider our resentment to the curiosity that it prompts. 

OVERALL SCORE: 6/10

Megalopolis was released on September 27, 2024, and is currently showing in US theaters.