Here’s a question: If Adam Driver’s character in Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating Megalopolis has the magical ability to stop time, why doesn’t he use it to book himself an appointment to get a better haircut?
But we kid Driver and his Ross-from-Friends-ass hair, which features prominently in the first look at Coppola’s film, which he’s been trying to make, in one form or another, for more than 40 years. Tonsorial issues aside, it’s a genuinely cool little slice of movie, too, as Driver’s character, architect Cesar Catilina, cautiously stumbles out on to a ledge, seems to be on the verge of killing himself, and then brings time to a sudden halt. Driver—whose commitment to the material, we suspect, will be a saving grace for a movie whose script commits such crimes against subtlety as naming its characters “Cesar Catilina” and “Franklyn Cicero”—sells it all, including the charmingly casual finger snap that brings the world back to life.
Coppola, who’ll be debuting the film at Cannes on May 17, released a statement with the teaser, dedicating it to his wife Eleanor, who died in April 2024, and whose 88th birthday would have been today. “Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor,” the director wrote on Instagram. “I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf.”