In a swank Parisian apartment in the 1970s, a woman lays of the floor, passed away. Tragically dying long before her time of a heart attack at the age of 52 is soprano Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie). She will go down as one of the greatest opera singers the world has ever known. In her time, ‘La Divina’ (“The Divine One”) was a beauty with a voice which wowed people the world over.
But it is not her time anymore… A week before her death, Maria starves herself, suffers from physical and mental ailments and is self-medicating. Ever the diva, her ego refuses to allow her to heed the warnings of her few companions. Her loyal butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) attempts to get Maria medical assistance and is chided as a result, while her loving housemaid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) lies to her about her declining vocal skills to protect her feelings.
In her last week upon the earth, Maria wanders Paris questioning her identity and is interviewed for an upcoming movie. She shares her hardships and her tumultuous past conquests with an interviewer known only as Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Oddly, he has the exact same name as the prescription drug which Maria has been abusing daily for many years.
With this picture, director Pablo Larraín completes his trilogy of films with 2016’s ‘Jackie’ and 2021’s ‘Spencer’ based around the lives of important 20th century women. Much like Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana Spencer, Maria Callas was the target of harassment from the paparazzi, suffered great hardships, yet is looked back on with much adoration.
Maria is not particularly a biopic in the ways one might expect. While it incorporates many flashbacks and exposition, audiences won’t learn a lot about the woman’s illustrious career or life. To such an extent, it’s probably for the best that you already have some knowledge of Callas as a performer. Many important moments of her life are only briefly touched upon or not mentioned at all, in favour of where this film’s true focus is lies, misery.
Director Pablo Larraín seems interested again in showing the tragedy of these women at some of their lowest points. Callas‘ woeful tale fits right in here, being she was a talented performer who lived the last years of her life in great emotional distress, with health and psychological issues seeing the end of her prime by the age of 40, when many other operatic performers are just getting started. Here, Larraín creates an almost oppressive feeling of pessimism, even as Maria herself remains at times optimistic.
Flashbacks are shown in black and white, truly highlighting that these happier moments are far in the past. A level of abstract storytelling is in play as well, with Mandrax being a meta and at times fourth wall shattering narrative device. This Avant-garde style has its moments but comes sandwiched between other scenes meant to be taken quite literally. We get into the mind of this fallen woman on death’s door but aren’t given much reason to see her as the stunning personality Maria Callas actually was.
Angelina Jolie is an amazing actress, and she remains at a point where she can take whichever role she is interested in. Sometimes Jolie‘s own charisma is the only thing making this diva character endearing. Yet at the same time, her own star power holds her back from being completely swallowed up and lost in the role.
Much worse is the effort Jolie went through to train her own voice (seven months of opera lessons!) is sabotaged immediately. With the film’s opening containing some of the worst lip-synching I’ve ever seen. It’s only during the finale where Jolie’s own singing talent is shown, by then it’s far too late.
The film finds a lot of heart in the performances of both Favino and Rohrwacher, hugely successful Italian actors in their own right playing the subdued, aged up roles of the two closest people in Maria‘s life. With Favino and Rohrwacher having both played intimate partners before, the two have a beautiful chemistry like an elderly married couple content with each other’s company.
Equally beautiful is the Oscar nominated cinematography by Edward Lachman. With on location filming in Greece, Paris, Italy, and Budapest, at times the film is absolutely stunning. Often, landmarks seen multiple times in other movies, here, have been shot in just slightly different ways to make them feel like it’s the first time you’re seeing these wonderous sights. A vibrancy in contrast to the depression emanating from Maria Callas on her way to the grave.
For all the beauty it holds, Maria is such an unrelentingly dour film about a woman who was so much more than that. Angelina Jolie does her best with what she is given but is mostly stuck between emoting sadness and stoicism… in the face of sadness!
This is exactly the type of film that Pablo Larraín set out to make and I understand that he is portraying Callas‘ final days as a tragedy worthy of one of her own extravagant operas. Yet the irony is not lost, focusing on Callas’ downfall which is not all different to the interests of the paparazzi who hounded her in her final years.
Maria is a gorgeous and melancholic film, but is one which feels like it isn’t interested in anything more than sorrow.