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Chilean director Pablo Larraín rounds off his trilogy of tragic women with his Maria Callas biopic, starring Angelina Jolie. Divine diva or does it miss the high notes?
The last time we saw Angelina Jolie on the big screen was in 2021 with Marvel’s panned but not-as-bad-as-you-remember-it The Eternals. She’s back this year with the most challenging role of her career: playing the most renowned and influential opera singer of the 20th century – Maria Callas.
Directed by Chilean director Pablo Larraín – who caps off the final part of his tragic women trilogy, which began with the Venice premiere of Jackie (2016), starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Onassis, and Spencer (2021), the Princess Diana biopic starring Kristen Stewart, which also debuted on the Lido – Maria sees Jolie take on the daunting role of “La Divina”, in a reimagining of her final days in 1970s Paris.
The pill-popping diva hasn’t sung onstage in more than four years and spends most of her time locked up in her lavish apartment, with her housekeeper Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) cooking her omelettes and her butler Feruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) monitoring her daily drug intake. And that’s when she’s not prepping to be interviewed by a journalist (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who we quickly realise is a drug-induced hallucination. The clue is in his name: Mandrax, which is Callas’ downer of choice.
It might not be the only thing that’s fake though… Who knows who or what is a figment of her imagination? After all, Maria’s doctor tells her that he “needs to have a conversation with (her) about life and death, about sanity and insanity.” This could all be similar to Blonde, and what we’re witnessing is the fever dream of an icon’s revived memories flashing before her eyes prior to her final breath…
However, unlike Andrew Dominik’s polarizing Marilyn Monroe biopic, which was a purposefully fragmented and chaotic chronicle of an equally fragmented psyche, Maria feels like a tamer and more subdued affair.
Like its trilogy predecessors, the film deals with the life of a woman whose notoriety has shackled them inside a prison of their own making. Dissimilar to the superb Jackie and the progressively clumsy Spencer, however, Maria keeps the viewer at more of a distance. Split into three Acts (“La Diva”, “Important Truth” and “Curtain Call”) and one epilogue titled “An Ending: Ascent” – which a bit too rigorously utilises the stunning Brian Eno song of the same name – Larraín chronicles how Callas’ myth suffocates her and how her great love continues to haunt her. Through flashbacks shot in black and white, we learn how she started a relationship with business tycoon Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who would end up leaving her for Jackie Kennedy – thereby allowing the filmmaker to loop the loop when it comes to his three parter.
Just don’t expect a Natalie Portman cameo. Nor any particular insight into the famed singer.
The script, by Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight, works well when it comes to the one-liners (“I’m not hungry – I come to restaurants to be adored”; “I’m in the mood for adulation”) and not succumbing to hagiography. Sadly, it never establishes any stakes beyond “happiness never produced a beautiful melody”, or offer any radical take on biopic conventions.
There is still plenty to enjoy in this elegant drama, which is beautifully shot by cinematographer Edward Lachman. The DP crafts palpably gorgeous autumnal tableaus, using a mix of 35mm, 16mm and Super 8mm to give Maria a textured feel that outclasses both Jackie and Spencer.
Then there’s Jolie, who give it socks when it comes to portraying the legendary American-born Greek soprano. It’s a well calibrated performance, as she manages to toe the line and not go full Norma Desmond when tackling the notoriously difficult diva. Nor does she succumb to full blown emotions, as her torments and vulnerabilities occasionally bubble to the surface in a masterfully subtle way. It’s a shame that the close-ups of her singing feel off, despite Jolie having reportedly taken six months of vocal training for the part. The sequences in which we see and hear her sing never quite hit their high notes, as they distractingly look like Jolie lip-synching rather than truly embodying the celebrated musician and her unique posture.
Frustratingly, the film also shoots itself in the vocal cords at the very end, as Maria succumbs to that most grating of biopic tropes by showing real-life footage of the central protagonist, thereby torpedoing the suspension of disbelief of Jolie being Callas, as opposed to an actress engaging in (albeit impressive) mimicry.
Despite it not being the sonic slap many were hoping, Maria does remain an engaging love letter to Callas, and isn’t without its emotionally charged moments – chief amongst them being the resonant meeting between Maria and her sister (“Close the door, little sister”… and pass the tissues), as well as the stunning ending featuring the diva’s dogs crying an aria, as Rohrwacher and Favino steal the show with a genuine moment of tenderness.
Pity that for all its strengths, the film is not the divine take on “La Divina” one might have hoped for.
Maria premiered at the Venice Film Festival in Competition.
English