It was a strange year at the Cannes Film Festival. The most anticipated title landed with a deafening thud and plenty of films were fine but underwhelming, before a couple of incognito gems lit up the Croisette and saved the day.
The film most critics felt compelled to watch was Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, a 40-years-in-the-making experimental sci-fi with a $120 million price-tag partially funded by Coppola’s selling one of his vineyards (fortunately he has more). Adam Driver stars as a priapic, time-pausing architect, Cesar Catalina, whose life’s work is to build a utopia out of the dystopia that is the decadent and divided New Rome. This clunky epic left me without any critical convictions. Who can hate a grand folly that a man sold his vineyard to fund? Yet, I cannot say it was well made, coherent or truly interesting, even if it does offer further proof that Aubrey Plaza can do no wrong. Here, she shines as ‘Wall Street slut’ Wow Platinum. But, onto the good stuff!
