After a year of rumor and innuendo that it’s a nightmare production and a mess of a movie, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis premiered at Cannes yesterday and…it’s a mess.

 

I can’t even imagine how that works? As a one-off, I can see it, but scale that up to a theatrical release playing on 1,000 screens. Will there be 1,000 random people appearing in-person at every showing to talk to Adam Driver on the screen? You know, I hope so! I’ll take a messy big swing over more corporate-branded IP. That’s what a friend of mine at Cannes called Megalopolis after its premiere, “a messy big swing”. So maybe all the dire predictions were right, and the movie is terrible, though it still sounds interesting, like Coppola is still trying to innovate sixty years into his career.

 

Although, Coppola supported filmmaker Victor Salva even after he was convicted of molesting a child in the 1980s. Worse, Salva was convicted for molesting a child actor on Clownhouse, a film Coppola produced. And then Coppola kept producing Salva’s films for DECADES afterward. So, maybe it’s karma that Coppola might be on the brink of blowing his winery money on a weird movie that could well bomb.

 

Of course, the splashy premiere at Cannes was free from such drama. Coppola was greeted as an elder statesman of cinema—which he is, but the other thing exists, too—and the film received a ten-minute standing ovation. Cannes audiences are nuts, I haven’t clapped for ten minutes for anything in my life.

 

The cast turned out, though, led by Adam Driver. Frankly, I was hoping for a weirder outfit from Aubrey Plaza, but she kept it old school Hollywood with a white satin gown and emeralds, though the rolled dropped waist on the gown is a nice touch. Nathalie Emmanuel looks great, as do Laurence Fishburne and Giancarlo Esposito, and I like Grace VanderWaal’s veil. Normalize veils as an accessory! Chloe Fineman, though, is underwhelming (she often is, she is not as much of a fashion girly as she thinks she is). Then there’s the problematic contingent of the cast: Jon Voight and Shia LaBeouf. After remembering about Victor Salva, I am not surprised Coppola cast LaBeouf. 

 

But Cannes is more than just the Croisette! There were parties, too. Barry Keoghan is making the most of his trip, popping up at the Nespresso x Brut party—along with Hunter Schafer in a GREAT floral dress with POCKETS—after the premiere of Andrea Arnold’s new film, Bird, in which Keoghan stars. I thought he was wearing fancy pajamas at first glance, but Barry’s purple ensemble is fancy leisure wear? I’m honestly not sure what that is, and I’m not sure I actually like his style, but Barry Keoghan has rapidly become a reliably eccentric dresser. Sabrina Carpenter is performing on SNL this weekend. Do we think Barry will be there?

The cast of "Megalopolis," including Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, and Francis Ford Coppola, attended the screening and red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
Photo credits: Instar Images, Backgrid

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