'Megalopolis' should come with a question mark attached.

Everything you have read or will read about Francis Ford Coppola's latest, and potentially final film, Megalopolis, is true. For the 85-year-old filmmaker, this is the culmination of a 40-year-long obsession with Roman fables, Randian iconoclastic megalomaniacs, and sweeping gestures of cinematic idiosyncrasy. One final big swing before he can rest, drink his best-selling wine, and spend the rest of his days looking down on the fools attempting to riff on his career. For the audience to whom he has left this strange parting gift, it may be the beginning of something brand new: something with the promise of a Megalopolis, but with the end result of a Megalopolis.

That is to say, people calling this the long-awaited return of master Coppola are correct, just as those calling it the pretentious ramblings of an old man fallen off the fender. It is a movie with such staggering imagery that one may be reminded of Eisenstein, Lang, Murnau, and numerous other silent-era visual stylists, while at the same time featuring moments of such obvious amateurishness that you might wonder if this is a debut feature. Megalopolis teeters on that precarious balance between masterpiece and total failure with such consistency that it seems intentional. Just what did Caesar mean when he said he needs to 'pretend to be bad'? Is there a method to all this madness?

Megalopolis is a self-proclaimed fable about Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), an eccentric, Nobel Prize-winning scientist and architect intent on building a brand-new city, the titular Megalopolis, to push humanity forward. His ability to stop time on a whim makes him the prime candidate to break away from the needless politics of civilization, and attempt to create a utopia. Standing in his way is the Mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who sees Cesar's drive for progress as far too ignorant of the present, and disagrees with his fundamental philosophy. Cesar also has a cousin, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), who thirsts for the fame and power that Cesar has inadvertently gained. Clodio steps into the political world as an authoritarian, Trump-like figure who will stop at nothing to win the people's hearts, and their money.

If that sounds confusing, just know I'm leaving out Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), a sexual demon hypnotist, Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal), a pop star whose main draw is her virginity, and an entire Russian satellite subplot. Truth be told, Megalopolis barely cares about the sense it thinks it's making minute to minute. Like Cesar, the movie is never concerned with the 'now.' It's only about what must come next, or what has been. What this creates is one continuous stream of expressionistic thought, with outlandish line readings, acting choices, shot compositions, and moments that refuse to make sense individually. By the end, it's doubtful you'll even know what Megalopolis, both the movie and the city, is meant to be, and that's exactly the point.

When I said everything you read about this movie would be true, I wasn’t lying, because the point of Megalopolis is the dialogue around it. When Cesar says, "When we ask these questions, when there’s a dialogue about them, that basically is a utopia," it's essentially Coppola asking the audience if they’re satisfied with the studio system today, if they’re happy with what they’re seeing in cinemas. In the '70s, Coppola revolutionized American cinema with The Godfather, and though that version of him is gone, his penchant for evolution remains. He continues to push audiences to reflect on the art they consume. Megalopolis should come with a question mark attached: is this your version of a utopia?

The answer for many people will be no. Megalopolis is not going to do well at the box office. It will lose an absurd amount of money. That was to be expected. But it’s already working. People who haven’t even seen the movie are discussing why it’s failing, speculating on what could be wrong with a film like this. Those who walked out in anger, venting to their friends about strange aspect ratios and baffling plot choices are doing exactly what Coppola wanted. And those who enjoyed the film, talking to people who hated it, that’s a dialogue. Right now, the entire world is creating their own version of Megalopolis, and that’s a beautiful thing. A garish, haphazard, tin-eared, gorgeously stupid, beautiful thing.