Whatever you’ve heard about 'Megalopolis,' see this gutsy Coppola film for yourself

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Nathalie Emmanuel and Adam Driver star as Julia and Cesar in Megalopolis. / Courtesy of Lionsgate

In the early 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola, with classics like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now under his belt, set his sights on his next magnum opus: an ambitious, fable-like drama that would draw parallels between the U.S. and ancient Rome.

But after the costly flop of his 1982 musical, One From the Heart, Coppola wasn’t able to get another big-budget labor of love off the ground, and Megalopolis languished for decades. It was only a few years ago that he returned to the project, selling off part of his wine business and putting up $120 million of his own money. Even after production wrapped, setbacks continued, from challenges finding theatrical distribution to reports that Coppola had behaved inappropriately with women on the set, which the director has denied.

Now, against considerable odds, Megalopolis has arrived, and whatever you have or haven’t heard about it, I urge you to see it for yourself. You might conclude, like some of the critics at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, that Megalopolis is an unholy mess, full of disjointed plot points, didactic ideas and muddled historical allusions — an epic folly from a once-great filmmaker who long ago lost his mojo and possibly his mind. To which I can only say that every folly should have as much guts and passion as Megalopolis. I’ve seen it twice now, and both times I’ve come away dazzled by its beauty, its conviction, and its moments of brilliance.

The story takes place in a city called New Rome, which looks a lot like New York, but with Roman flourishes, from the classical architecture to the bacchanalian parties and even a Colosseum-style sports arena. The plot essentially updates a famous Roman power struggle from 63 B.C.

Adam Driver plays Cesar Catilina, an architect and designer who longs to transform New Rome into a dazzling futuristic utopia. But Cesar is challenged by the cynical mayor, Franklyn Cicero — that’s Giancarlo Esposito — who sees Cesar as a delusional dreamer. Furthering the conflict is Cicero’s daughter, Julia, a hard-partying medical-school dropout played by Nathalie Emmanuel, who asks Cesar for a job.

There’s a speechy stiffness to Coppola’s dialogue that takes some getting used to. But the story itself is a fairly straightforward mix of romance, sci-fi noir and political thriller. Cesar does hire Julia as an assistant, and they become lovers. But many complications ensue.

There’s the mystery of Cesar’s late wife, who died years ago under strange circumstances. There’s also much dysfunctional-family drama involving Cesar’s filthy-rich banker uncle, played by Jon Voight, and a ne’er-do-well cousin — that’s Shia LaBeouf. Both men have their own sinister designs on the city’s future. And in the borderline-cliché role of an unscrupulous TV reporter, Aubrey Plaza steals every scene, as Plaza usually does.

There’s more, much more: horse-drawn chariots and nightclub unicorns, Old Hollywood-style film techniques and kaleidoscopic visual effects, wild sex and startling violence. There are also references to Pygmalion, Marcus Aurelius, Sapphic poetry and Hamlet, whose “to be or not to be” soliloquy Cesar at one point performs. He’s in the throes of an existential crisis, fearful that humanity’s time may be running out.

And if Megalopolis has one subject, it’s time. The characters talk about time constantly. The trippy production design is full of clocks and sundials. Cesar has the supernatural ability to briefly freeze time in its tracks, but even he cannot halt its forward march for long. Watching the movie, I couldn’t stop thinking about Coppola, who’s now 85, and his own battle with time, including the four decades he spent trying to get Megalopolis made.

But whatever resentment Coppola may feel toward an industry that has both honored and shunned him over the years, there isn’t a trace of bitterness in the movie. Cesar believes in the future, and so does Coppola. Just because Rome fell, he seems to say, doesn’t mean the world has to. Wars can end, the planet can be saved and people can choose to live in a more inclusive and equitable society.

Most of all, Coppola clearly believes in the future of movies, and that, in a medium overrun with franchises, streaming junk and AI technology, there’s still room for a big-screen work of art as grandly improbable and deeply human as Megalopolis. Like so many of Francis Ford Coppola’s movies, it truly is one from the heart.