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After decades of existing only in Francis Ford Coppola's dreams, Megalopolis premiered in 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival, and it was a starry affair thanks to the film's A-list cast, including Aubrey Plaza. Set in an alternate reality New York City, named New Rome, Megalopolis revolves around one man's dream of radically changing the city for good through the use of his own revolutionary technology. Coppola had wanted to make Megalopolis for years, but had trouble securing money, which resulted in him financing the film himself. It was a gamble by Coppola that didn't quite pay off.
Megalopolis had a budget of at least $120 million, but only brought in a little over $11 million worldwide, becoming one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. Looking past the financial performance of the film, Megalopolis reviews were divisive. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Megalopolis is the variety of absurd characters on display, with some of the biggest actors working today taking part in what could very well be Francis Ford Coppola's last film. Some definitely stood out more than others, particularly Aubrey Plaza, who was borderline criminally underused
Aubrey Plaza Understood What Type Of Movie Megalopolis Was
She Dials Up Wow Platinum's Character's Campiness
Aubrey Plaza played Wow Platinum in Megalopolis, a character with one of the greatest names in modern American cinema. Despite her somewhat limited role, Wow Platinum has a significant part to play in Megalopolis as an ambitious journalist who starts off the film in a physically intimate relationship with Adam Driver's Cesar Catalina. From her very first scene, Aubrey Plaza understands what type of movie she is in, dialing up the campiness to historic degrees, and making dialogue like "You're anal as hell, Cesar. I, on the other hand, am oral as hell." sing in a way few performers could.
With the stoicism that Adam Driver brings to his character, it can be hard to buy into his romance with Nathalie Emmanuel's Julia Cicero.
The performances in Megalopolis as a whole feel like they are all taking place in different movies, with some actors like Adam Driver or Nathalie Emmanuel playing it more straight, while Aubrey Plaza's Wow Platinum and Shia LaBeouf's Clodio Pulcher going for broke. The latter works much better in the idiosyncratic world that Francis Ford Coppola built. With the stoicism that Adam Driver brings to his character, it can be hard to buy into his romance with Nathalie Emmanuel's Julia Cicero, which is the beating heart of Megalopolis' story.
Megalopolis Would Have Benefitted From A Stronger Female Presence
Most Of The Women Were Pushed To The Side
Megalopolis as a whole consists of a lot of men arguing about how best to build the city, waxing Shakespeare and Marcus Aurelius along the way. In making an analogy to the fall of the Roman Empire, Francis Ford Coppola succeeded in that regard. Still, it would have greatly benefitted the film to have a stronger female presence throughout. Nathalie Emmanuel plays an important role as Julia Cicero, the love interest of Cesar Catalina, but she doesn't get much development in the film, existing essentially as a muse for Adam Driver's character.
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The women in the film are constantly pushed to the background, making space for these self-important men to argue among themselves about who is the better man. Wow Platinum feels like the only woman in the movie to have any sort of agency, particularly with her scheming alongside Clodio Pulcher to seize power and wealth for herself. Focusing more on Plaza's Wow Platinum could have been a fantastic solution to Megalopolis' shortcomings, as she already was the most interesting aspect of the film. Even Julia Cicero having more agency could have made Megalopolis much stronger overall.
What Aubrey Plaza Has Said About Megalopolis
Megalopolis Was A Madhouse Shoot
Despite the overall consensus of Megalopolis, many felt that Wow Platinum was one of the standouts among a crowded cast of characters. Aubrey Plaza has not been shy about her time working with Francis Ford Coppola and performing in a film like Megalopolis, doing a number of interviews where she peels back the curtains a bit, revealing what it was really like playing Wow Platinum. In an interview with the New York Times, Plaza talked about the difficulties during production and how she had to approach her Wow Platinum role, stating:
It was madness working on that film... My mentality every day was ‘every man for himself; only the strong survive here'... Even in the car on the way to that set, I would transform into Wow. I would go, ‘OK, I’m terrified right now, I’m having a nervous breakdown as myself, but Wow’s not. She can handle anything.’ And I would switch like a lightbulb: ‘It’s Wow time.’... If you weren’t, then you’d get eaten alive. You had to be confident and have a plan because it’s not all on the page.
Megalopolis was the first time that Aubrey Plaza had worked with Francis Ford Coppola in her career. Colalborating with such a prolific director is something most actors would like to do at some point in their careers, so when it happened to Plaza, she was ecstatic about the significant opportunity. In an interview with Deadline, the actress opened up about Coppola as a director and what she thought about working with him on Megalopolis:
He’s got such a magical way of directing and inspiring actors. You can feel it when you watch his movies and I felt it when I worked with him. It was everything that I had hoped for. And I think ultimately, he is just a brilliant storyteller, and he has something to say, I think. Every movie that he makes, there is a passion behind it. It feels like there is a reason for it. It’s pure in an artistic sense. Even though he’s obviously commercially successful through the years, it never seems like it’s about that. It’s just that he wants to tell stories and he wants to play with actors. So, it’s my favorite stuff.
She Also Appeared In My Old Ass & Agatha All Along
Movie / TV Show | Character |
Agatha All Along | Rio Vidal / Death |
My Old Ass | Elliot |
Megalopolis | Wow Platinum |
Aubrey Plaza had one of the strongest years of her career in 2024, having roles in a number of significant projects alongside Megalopolis. Her new film, My Old Ass sees Plaza playing Older Elliot, a future version of the protagonist who advises her about her future self.
The film earned rave reviews, currently sitting at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and My Old Ass quickly topped the streaming charts in the process. Even with Megalopolis and My Old Ass, Plaza played a significant role in the MCU series, Agatha All Along, as Death. It was a major reveal that could result in Plaza reprising her role in the franchise because of her importance.
Despite being seen as the deadpan comic relief for a significant part of her career, Aubrey Plaza has steadily become one of the best actors in the past several years. Her roles in 2024 just reinforce this, allowing her to flex her acting talents in a wide variety of genres, and a diverse range of characters. Even with Megalopolis being easy to dismiss as not the masterpiece Francis Ford Coppola had dreamed about, if anything is worth mentioning, it's Plaza's performance as Wow Platinum, which is arguably the strongest aspect of the entire film.
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It's possible that Megalopolis will be looked upon favorably years down the line, as Francis Ford Coppola's finally realized dream, and the fascinating ramblings of a filmmaker whose greatest works left him behind decades prior. Even if that does turn out to be the case, there was still a missed opportunity that Megalopolis had, and that was Aubrey Plaza's Wow Platinum. Few understood Coppola's assignment the way Plaza did throughout the film, resulting in one of the strangest characters in a significant American film in years. If Wow Platinum was the protagonist, Megalopolis could have been an all-timer.
Megalopolis, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is a visionary 2024 film exploring the ambitious dream of reconstructing New York City into a utopia, following a devastating disaster. The narrative delves into the clash between the architect's utopian vision and the political and personal turmoil that ensues. With a star-studded cast, the film examines themes of ambition, power, and the human spirit's resilience against the backdrop of a futuristic metropolis.
Release Date September 27, 2024
Runtime 138 Minutes
English (US) ·