Yorgos Lanthimos’s madcap follow-up to Poor Things zips us from a mind-bending Victorian London to the present—or, at least, a (characteristically bonkers) version of it—in which double Oscar winner Emma Stone dances with reckless abandon as cars are nearly crashed and bodies are dragged down hallways. A three-part sci-fi anthology which also stars Hunter Schafer, Joe Alwyn, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons, and Mamoudou Athie, it looks set to be a surreal romp from an auteur who is, undeniably, at the peak of his powers.
The Apprentice
Photo: Apprentice Productions Ontario Inc
After making a splash at Cannes in 2018 with the Swedish fantasy Border, and then again in 2022 with the Persian-language thriller Holy Spider, Ali Abbasi returns to the Croisette with something far more conventional, though no less exciting: an account of Donald Trump’s rise in ’70s and ’80s New York, with Pam & Tommy’s Sebastian Stan donning prosthetics and a blonde wig to play a younger iteration of the former president. Meanwhile, a still-very-much-Kendall-Roy-adjacent Jeremy Strong takes the role of Roy Cohn, the prosecutor and fixer who acted as Trump’s mentor, while Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’s Maria Bakalova becomes the aspiring real estate tycoon’s first wife, Ivana, and Martin Donovan his father, businessman Fred Trump. With the next presidential election looming and the film’s real-life subject still neck and neck with Joe Biden in the polls, this examination of corruption and deceit couldn’t feel more timely.
Megalopolis
A passion project that’s been over two decades in the making, Francis Ford Coppola’s first big-screen release since 2011 is easily the festival’s most-talked-about Palme d’Or contender: a debauched and decadent cautionary tale about America’s future, with a star-packed cast featuring everyone from Adam Driver and Aubrey Plaza to Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, and Nathalie Emmanuel. Early viewers’ responses have ranged from shock and bafflement to euphoria, though all agree that the 135-minute epic—which has, tellingly, still not secured a distribution deal—is an audacious piece of work. Cannes will be crucial to determining its fate: there’s a chance it could dazzle audiences and scoop the top prize (as another long-gestating and once seemingly cursed Coppola project, Apocalypse Now, did back in 1979), or it could be a major misfire. Either way, the entire industry will be watching with bated breath.
Emilia Perez
Photo: Courtesy of Pathé Films