Maria, the latest film by Chilean director Pablo Larraín, stars Angelina Jolie as the legendary opera singer Maria Callas. Premiered in competition at
Maria, the latest film by Chilean director Pablo Larraín, stars Angelina Jolie as the legendary opera singer Maria Callas. Premiered in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival, this role marks one of Jolie’s most ambitious performances in years. However, instead of feeling like a grand comeback, the role seems more like a project meticulously crafted around Jolie’s carefully controlled presence.
The role is accompanied by a range of elements designed to lend it credibility, such as Jolie’s months of training to sing opera, where her voice is seamlessly blended with Callas’s iconic vocals during her performances. Despite this, there is a notable lack of risk in Jolie’s on-screen portrayal, giving the impression that she is playing a woman who is, in turn, playing Maria Callas.
This deliberate detachment appears intentional, as Maria is the final part of Larraín’s trilogy, which began with Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy in Jackie and continued with Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in Spencer. Though Maria is arguably the weakest of the three, it shares with its predecessors a focus on image-making as much as on the iconic woman at its center.
Set in Paris during the twilight of Callas’s life, Maria explores the singer’s struggle to stop performing, despite not having sung on stage for years. Whether singing in her kitchen for her housekeeper Bruna (played by Alba Rohrwacher) or imagining an interview with a television journalist (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is actually a figment of her imagination, Callas is unable to escape the need to perform.
Larraín’s trilogy examines the dual nature of image as both power and prison, acknowledging the absurdity of this dilemma while attempting to treat it with the seriousness it demands. However, Maria struggles to strike this balance, caught between the gravitas of its subject matter and its insistence on portraying Callas as someone who spent much of her life trying to please those around her.
The film alternates between staged performances from Callas’s diary in 1977 and her past theatrical appearances, yet there seems to be no substance behind these performances. The character lacks physicality beneath her glamorous costumes and luxurious daywear.
The screenplay, penned by Steven Knight, is filled with dialogue that feels more suited for dramatic proclamations than natural conversation. Lines like, “What did you take?” asked by Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino), Callas’s devoted servant, when monitoring her pill consumption, are met with responses such as, “I took my freedom, all my life, and the world took its freedom with me.” When Ferruccio finally convinces her to visit a doctor she has been avoiding, the doctor gravely reassures her that they “need to have a conversation about life and death, and the mind and madness.”
Is Maria mad? Certainly, she is in a state of turmoil, spiraling out of control despite the gentle care of her housekeeper. She imagines interviews with Smit-McPhee’s character and attempts to rediscover her voice with the help of a pianist (Stephen Ashfield), who may also be a figment of her imagination.
Despite the film’s sensitivity towards its central character and the actress portraying her, it hesitates to fully embrace the idea that there might be something both tragic and entertaining about an opera star tearing apart her dressing room in search of a final backstage moment.
Jolie looks stunning throughout the film, with her sharp cheekbones and elegant housecoats, perfectly embodying Callas in her iconic cat-eye makeup and beehive hairdo in black-and-white flashbacks of her romance with Aristotle Onassis (played by Haluk Bilginer).
The film itself is visually striking, with cinematographer Edward Lachman capturing 1970s Paris with the delicate accuracy of a vintage postcard. Larraín’s direction includes fantastical sequences, like choirs emerging from crowds at the Trocadéro and orchestras playing on rain-soaked steps.
However, despite the evident effort put into crafting Maria, which is centered around a performance meant to be praised for its bravery, there is ultimately no standout moment or sense of risk that would make it truly memorable.
Sari Albeder – at the 81st Venice Film Festival
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