There is a whole lot going on in Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film “Megalopolis,” from controlling time to drug-induced hallucinations to political schemes. No one could fault you if you got a little lost, and we’re here to help straighten it out.
Now in theaters, the fable is a modern-day Roman epic, literally bringing stories of the Roman empire to New York. Throughout the film, we follow Cesar Catilina’s (Adam Driver) endeavors as he tries to turn The City of New Rome into a utopian megalopolis for its residents.
He plans to do so using Megalon, a new element he discovered — which allows him to also start and stop time — and won a Nobel Prize for. He believes in radical change and improvement. But Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) doesn’t share that love of change; he sticks to tradition and status quo, and definitely class systems.
When the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) begins working with and falls in love with Cesar, his distaste for the architect only increases, publicly trashing him to the public.
Eventually the couple gets pregnant, and the mayor offers Cesar a bribe: leave Julia and their unborn child, and Cicero will not only publicly support Cesar’s Megalopolis plans, but he will also confess to wrongly prosecuting Cesar for the death of Cesar’s wife.
In the end though, we see Cesar and Julia marry in private and they welcome a baby girl into the world. That baby is pretty key to the ending of the film. More on that momentarily.
While Cicero pushes back against Cesar, Cesar’s cousin Clodio (Shia LaBeouf) is also working against him, hoping to take over New Rome himself. Clodio teams up with Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), who married Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). Crassus runs the city’s biggest bank.
Confused yet?
The thing is, Wow always loved Cesar, but when he couldn’t love her back the way she wanted, she married Crassus for his money. Together, she and Clodio hatch a plan to oust Crassus from his company, and freeze Cesar’s assets.
Crassus catches onto their plan and, feigning frailness after a stroke, manages to surprise attack them — literally. Crassus kills his wife with a small bow and arrow.
He manages to loose a few arrows into Clodio too — right up his, uh, behind — but Clodio escapes. Unfortunately for Clodio, he only makes it back to a group of his supporters, who turn on him for failing to come through on his promises of power and control, and beat him to death themselves.
Deciding that he wants to be remembered as a good man, whether he actually was one or not, Crassus signs over his assets to Cesar, allowing the Megalopolis to get built. Mayor Cicero begrudgingly accepts this development, embracing some change with encouragement from his wife.
In the final minutes of the film, we see Cicero, his wife, Julia and Cesar all celebrating the new year in the heart of Megalopolis, adoration heaped on them from its citizens.
Cesar encourages Julia to stop time right as the ball drops, which she does, leaving the couple, as well as Cicero and his wife, mid-kiss. Everyone around is frozen — except for Cesar and Julia’s baby girl.
So, what does it all mean? Well, on a broad level, it’s a very physical manifestation of Francis Ford Coppola’s central message, which is that we need to create and leave a better society for our children. Children are the hope of the future, and now Julia and Cesar’s baby controls what’s to come.
On a practical level, well, yes, we’re concerned for the baby too. She’s still an infant, can she control time yet? Does she even have a concept of time? Who’s going to care for her in this frozen world? The mind boggles!
“Megalopolis” is now in theaters everywhere.
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