'Megalopolis' sounds like a huge mess. I can’t wait to see it

Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie drew bafflement at its Cannes debut. It sounds in every way like the kind of glorious lark that we've been missing.

I’m not at the Cannes Film Festival, unfortunately. Maybe someday. 

Every year at Cannes, long-awaited movies have their premieres, and those of us who remain stateside follow the reactions to see what the lucky critics in attendance think of the big films that we probably won’t have a chance to see ourselves for several more months. 

Sure, annoying people are going to screenings with stopwatches to measure how long the standing ovations are or possibly count the lines or how much screen time or lines specific performers have in the films. But I’m much more interested in the reactions from critics I trust to the movies. 

Movies that premiere at festivals—especially Sundance and South by Southwest—often get wildly overpraised, and the reaction is much more muted once they reach the general public. 

Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited Megalopolis premiered at Cannes, its first major screening except for a one-off in Los Angeles a few weeks earlier. Coppola self-financed the high-budget film, his first new movie in 13 years, his first high-profile release in even longer than that, and very likely the 85-year-old legend’s final film. 

The Cannes reviews weren’t exactly positive; some were scathing. Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri calls it “a work of absolute madness.” Indiewire’s David Ehrlich described it as “a wild and delirious fever dream.” Vanity Fair calls it a “passion project gone horribly wrong.”

The reviews repeat a few clear themes: The actors pitch their performances in different tones. The production design looks cheap despite the budget that’s north of $100 million. There’s a weird scene where a character appears on stage and talks to Adam Driver, which seems impossible to replicate at scale. 

Overall, the reviews make Megalopolis sound like the most insane movie ever produced—a mad auteurist project in which a talented director has taken a massive swing and is trying to make a huge statement about the world today and how we live.