Francis Ford Coppola’s 140-minute dystopian drama Megalopolis received a mixed reaction at its Cannes Film Festival premiere on Thursday (May 16), with some members of the audience initially booing.
The Godfather director’s new, self-financed film stars Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, an architect-scientist who wants to improve a fictional version of New York City called New Rome.
Audience members reportedly started booing after the film ended. However, according to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, the boos soon turned to cheers when an “In Memoriam” segment proceeded to play for Coppola’s late wife Eleanor. The director and cast then received a seven-minute standing ovation.
“Thank you all so much. It is so impossible to find words to tell you how I feel,” Coppola said at the end of the credits, introducing his family members to the audience.
“But they were not the only family because all of these wonderful actors and folks were all my family. As Cesar [Driver’s character in the film] says, we’re all one family. You’re all my cousins. We are one. We are the human family. As you see at the end, that’s who we should pledge our allegiance to: our entire family and to this beautiful home, Earth, that we have.
“That is my wish. That it’s the children who are going to inherit this beautiful world from us. The most important word we have is the most beautiful word in any language: ‘esperanza.’ Hope. And that’s what I dedicate this to.”
Megalopolis has also received a mixed reaction from critics, debuting on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 53 per cent.
In a two-star review, The Guardian wrote: “This is a passion project without passion: a bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow film, full of high-school-valedictorian verities about humanity’s future. It’s simultaneously hyperactive and lifeless, lumbered with some terrible acting and uninteresting, inexpensive-looking VFX work.”
Meanwhile, a more positive review from The Independent said the film is “bursting with ideas”, while adding that is full with “bizarre moments”. “At one point Cesar suddenly recites Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy. In another, Jon Voight – playing a sleazy banker – shoots a rival in the buttocks with a golden arrow.”
Adding to the “bizarreness”, at one point during the film, an actor playing a journalist reportedly stood in front of the screen and asked Driver’s character a question, which Cesar proceeded to answer.
Megalopolis is set in an “imagined Modern America”, the official synopsis reads. “The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.
“Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.”
Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, DB Sweeney and Dustin Hoffman also star.