Cinema is an art form whose beauty lies in contradiction. The best movies—despite requiring the work of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of artists—present a singular, unified vision. The ability of films to achieve this is often correlated with their budgets; the more money a film has, the more stakeholders are involved, leading to more disparate input. What a filmmaker sacrifices in artistic control is often compensated for by financial resources, and vice versa. In theory, then, Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating passion project Megalopolis—four decades in the making and financed with $120 million of Coppola’s own money, procured from selling part of his winery—should be a great film. In practice, however, Megalopolis is the kind of film that gives studio notes a good name.

Coppola has a storied history of butting heads with Hollywood’s financial apparatuses, bankrupting himself multiple times in his attempts to create films outside the oppressive structures that sought to control his vision. In this regard, Coppola likely sees a lot of himself in Megalopolis’ main character, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a visionary architect and Nobel Prize-winning discoverer of the miracle substance Megalon (sadly, no relation to the giant bipedal insect monster that Godzilla once fought). This magical MacGuffin can essentially do whatever the plot demands, but in the film, it creates an “invisible” dress, outfits a dog with a glitzy leg cast, heals a life-threatening injury, and—perhaps most importantly—replays Cesar’s memories of his late wife.

Cesar aims to build a new utopia powered by Megalon, a city that can grow, change, and learn alongside its inhabitants. There’s just one problem: the powers that be don’t want to see this visionary succeed (sound familiar?). The mayor of New Rome—a retro-futuristic New York with a Rome fetish—Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), would rather erect a new casino than see his bitter rival, Cesar, realize his paradise. Their rivalry is longstanding; Cicero, once the district attorney, prosecuted Cesar for the murder of his wife. Cesar was acquitted, but Cicero has harbored a grudge ever since, complicating matters when his daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), begins working for Cesar.

Julia’s infatuation with Cesar begins when she witnesses him do the impossible: stop time. This gift—presumably a byproduct of Megalon, though the film is unclear on this and many other points—is one of many mysteries in Megalopolis. However, as the film so eloquently puts it, “all artists manipulate time.” While Coppola cannot freeze time, nor buy himself more at 85 years old, with Megalopolis, which could be his final film, he makes an impassioned plea for the future of both cinema and the world. But passion alone can only carry a story so far.

By directing, writing, producing, and financing Megalopolis, Coppola answers to no one—but the audience is left out of his vision. You might expect that letting the filmmaker behind The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now loose with a blockbuster-sized budget would result in a feast of cinematic invention. In reality, Megalopolis feels like an unhinged film student’s first feature, albeit with the resources of an auteur who just cashed out a side hustle. There’s an almost endearing “look-at-grandpa-go” quality to the film’s unbridled lack of focus, but for the average viewer, Megalopolis might seem, at best, pretentious, and at worst, tedious.

Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in 'Megalopolis' Lionsgate via MovieStillsDB

Coppola encouraged his actors to improvise on set, allowing them to write dialogue and create scenes for their characters. This free-flowing style results in a slew of performances as incongruous as the fictional New York-Rome hybrid city they inhabit. Only Aubrey Plaza’s Wow Platinum (yes, that’s her character’s name)—a TV broadcaster with ambitions of marrying into the Catilina family—and Shia LaBeouf’s Clodio Pulcher—Cesar’s conniving cousin, who is allegedly sleeping with his three sisters—seem to occupy the same story.

While LaBeouf and Plaza quite literally match each other’s freak, Driver is enigmatic as the aloof visionary. Jon Voight, playing Cesar’s wealthy uncle Hamilton Crassus III, embodies a vain, rude, and objectifying old man—an easy day at the office for Voight. Laurence Fishburne, a longtime Coppola collaborator, narrates the film and portrays Cesar’s driver and assistant, Fundi Romaine, with the monotone coolness you’d expect from Morpheus. Esposito, to his credit, at least attempts to ground the film in some semblance of reality, though even he seems unsure of what movie he’s in.

Then there’s Nathalie Emmanuel, who so clearly should be the film’s focal point. Julia could not only serve as the audience’s point of view into Coppola’s fictional world, but also as a thematic foil for New Rome itself. Julia is torn between the ideals of her conservative father and her futurist employer, just as the city they fight over is caught between their competing visions. Focusing on Julia’s internal conflict and the broader implications of New Rome could have made Coppola’s comparison of the fall of Rome to the current state of the United States a compelling premise. Unfortunately, Julia is not given enough character development for this to work.

Ultimately, Megalopolis stumbles in its portrayal of female characters. Nearly every woman in the film exists to serve a male character’s development—whether it’s Cesar’s emotionally distant mother, his deceased wife, or his muse, Julia. The rest are either portrayed as vile, power-hungry temptresses like Wow Platinum, or relegated to sexualized set decorations and nepotistic cameos. Though the film grants Julia some agency in its final moments, by then it’s too little, too late.

It brings me no joy to withhold praise from Megalopolis. A filmmaker of Coppola’s stature self-financing a film of this magnitude should be a thrilling proposition. Yet, Megalopolis’ ill-defined, convoluted narrative seems to reside solely in the mind of its director. While I have no doubt Coppola understands the world he’s created, the film conveys little more than a circuitous mix of philosophical musings that ultimately becomes an appeal for a future Coppola can’t quite communicate on screen.