Angelina Jolie Will Get Another Oscar Nod for ‘Maria’

VENICE, Italy—A legend of the stage, few people have become as synonymous with an art form as Maria Callas has with opera. Known affectionately as “La Divina” (or “The Divine One”), Callas’ once-in-a-lifetime voice and performance abilities made her an unbeatable name in the world of opera. Callas is finally receiving a long-overdue treatment in Pablo Larráin’s Maria, starring Angelina Jolie, her first role in three years, as Callas.

Maria, which just premiered at the Venice Film Festival, takes place in the week before the opera singer's death. It’s framed around an extensive interview of Maria Callas, conducted by Mandrax (Kodi Smitt-McPhee), a journalist keen to learn about every aspect of her life. Maria is happy to participate, even answering questions Mandrax doesn’t press her on. She’s surprisingly vulnerable despite her reputation for being quick to anger. Perhaps that’s all because the interview isn’t real and exists entirely within her mind, and Mandrax is also the name of her medication.

This is a compelling hook for a biopic, a storytelling method that often gets stuck into the same ebbs and flows. But Maria is a swirling, fragmented recollection of Callas’ life, one that leaves things frustratingly on the surface. Larraín has an incredible eye, and Maria is a richly textured visual feast. Brought to life by cinematographer Ed Lachman, the film makes beautiful use of Paris in the Autumn, reveling in a warm palette. The style sometimes gets away with itself, including a jarring first-person shakycam shot of a clothing rack, but it mostly works. And the visuals all work to serve Jolie’s pivotal performance.

But a performance is not an entire film, and the script keeps things frustratingly surface-level. This is a film that gets lost in its beauty and languishes through a two-hour runtime. Larraín is no stranger to an unconventional biopic, having directed both Neruda and Jackie, but the script gets away from him, indulging in a visual feast that struggles to find real substance. Maria languishes in sadness, offering little else in its story besides a date with misery.

That’s a shame because Jolie is sensational as Maria Callas. Despite the film focusing on Callas’ last days on Earth, Jolie never gives into the temptation of going for broke with some sort of manic desperation. She exudes the essence of a diva without the stereotypical hysterics. Maria’s internal organs may be failing her, but her exterior is poised and rigid. As Callas, Jolie walks with an almost ethereal quality as if strolling on clouds.

Her otherworldly confidence rarely gives way, but when it does, Jolie brings a chilling vulnerability to her performance.The film has Callas revisiting her past while reckoning with her future, which gives Jolie plenty of opportunities to explore her character. Not one for scenery chewing, Jolie looks inside Callas, channeling a remarkable pain behind her eyes, conflicting with her welcoming smile. Jolie is almost unbearably glamorous, draped in exquisite gowns and costumes courtesy of costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini.

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And then there’s the singing. While all the songs in the film are recordings of the real Callas, Jolie embodies the singer exquisitely, lipsyncing the numbers with such gravitas and power that you’d think she became a trained opera singer for the role. There’s a clear difference between her singing in the flashbacks to her past—shot in vivid black-and-white—and the film’s present. In the past, she was an unstoppable force, but in the present, there’s a shakiness to the performance as she tries to find the voice she’s no longer physically capable of producing. Jolie is especially spellbinding here as the veins bulge in her forehead, bringing Callas’ legendary presence to life.

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Jolie doesn’t bear much of a physical resemblance to Callas—and thankfully Maria avoids drowning Jolie’s expressive face in a sea of prosthetics. When the credits roll and the footage of the real Callas plays, Jolie embodies the operatic diva so well you’d be forgiven for thinking it's the actress herself on screen.

Though Jolie delivers something truly special that only a true movie star can unearth, Maria lags behind her brilliance. The worlds of fantasy Maria has concocted in her head don’t converge satisfyingly with reality. While Jolie gives Callas interiority, the script is disjointed, focusing on so many seemingly disparate elements of the singer's life, including her love affair with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) that seems conspicuously absent of love. Aristotle frequently mentions how ugly he is, but Bilginer is undeniably handsome. The chemistry between the pair is lacking, and you never get the sense that Maria spends time with him for any other reason than obligation.

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Though the film is often sluggish, especially when the focus occasionally shifts away from Callas, Jolie’s performance ranks among her finest. The festival season is enticing to many because it typically signals the beginning of awards season, where the biggest and brightest come out to remind everyone why they’re superstars. That’s precisely what Jolie does in Maria—even if the film isn’t quite worthy of her efforts.

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