Grimes shares her verdict on Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ 

15 October, 2024

Grimes performs at 2024 Coachella and Francis Ford Coppola attends the "Megalopolis" premiere

Grimes has weighed in on the divisive new Francis Ford Coppola film, Megalopolis

The film was released in cinemas on September 27, and is set in an alternate present-day version of America. In it, Adam Driver plays futuristic architect Cesar Catilina, who can pause time and clashes with the conservative mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).

However, upon its release, it has been met with less-than-enthusiastic reviews and faced a rough ride at the box office – with people online labelling it ‘Megaflopolis’. It also received a somewhat hostile premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Now, amid the widespread criticism of the film by many viewers, Grimes has weighed in, and shared her more positive feelings towards the project.

“I know people had issues with megalopolis but I loved it,” Grimes wrote on X/Twitter. “But Ceasar (creative genius/but dictator) Catalina (first communist-ish / extreme for the ppl agitator but also corrupt) in a sacred necessary debate with the organised, overly bureaucratic and cautious mind of lawyer Cicero, creator of the established art laws (Francis (I assume Coppola) is such a beautiful concept, I melted.”

The musician continued: “I feel like it was about how utopia is discovered in the push and pull. Which is itself what’s truly needed. I feel like it was too dense to be populist and too crazy to appeal to philosophy and film nerds – but the craziness felt intentional to me. It reminded me of the imperfections of Greek tragedies and also Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.

“Honestly my only real complaint is that there aren’t rly character flaws in the two leads and I think I’d have liked them both more and the chaos would have been more justified if they had a more realistic personal conflict. Ceasar initially had a more realistic personality but he became perfect so fast that I lost interest in him.”

Later, Grimes also responded to a tweet reading “The whole thing is layered with references but it doesn’t care to explain them,” by writing: “Yeh every reference in megalopolis that I caught made me like it more and made it make more sense.  If he simply made a movie for nerds and repeat viewers to obsess over, I condone that 1000 per cent and wish more ppl would do that.”

In NME’s two-star review of Megalopolis, Lou Thomas wrote: “The whole piece is so uneven, that at times it’s akin to watching a toddler being given free rein as an interior decorator. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you always should.”

On its opening weekend at the US box office, the film – which was made for a budget of $120million (£90million) – brought in just $4million (£3million).

The project was riddled with controversies too, with an extra from the film saying she was left “in shock” after being kissed by Coppola on the set, and a trailer that included fake quotes from critics leading to a marketing consultant being fired.

As for Grimes, the musician recently responded to Poppy‘s recent re-ignition of their years-long feud. Their beef dates back to 2018, when the two collaborated on the song ‘Play Destroy’ for the latter’s album ‘Am I A Girl?’. At the time, Poppy claimed that she “could have gone without” the trouble that was allegedly caused by her collaborator.

Shortly before then, the artist teamed up with K-pop girl group aespa for a remix of their hit single ‘Supernova’.

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