'MaRia' Review

By Nadia Dalimonte

Angelina Jolie in Maria

From exploring the myth of Jackie Kennedy with Natalie Portman in Jackie (2016) to experimenting with Kristen Stewart on surrealism for Princess Diana in Spencer (2021), Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín has been building towards an unofficial trilogy about iconic twentieth century women during specific moments in history. He completes the trifecta this year with a sumptuous glimpse into the life of Maria Callas in Maria. Told with immense curiosity and a dreamlike sensibility, Maria follows the legendary opera singer as she rediscovers her voice during a fragile moment in time. Larraín’s introspective storytelling is a poetic fit for the transcendent journey of his subject. He finds a remarkable leading lady in Angelina Jolie, whose movie star charisma adds dimension to this operatic tale of a woman’s phenomenal legacy. Soon to be released by MUBI, Maria brings Larraín’s trilogy to an achingly beautiful close.

Continuing in the vein of Jackie and Spencer, Maria plays in the orchestra of rewriting an icon’s history. All three of these legendary women shared the unique experience in which people lived vicariously through them, defined them, spoke on their behalf, to the extent that they became larger than life representations of something much bigger than them. The public, not to mention the media, felt that they were owed something. There’s a powerful scene in Maria in which Maria encounters a bothered fan who had paid for tickets to a concert she cancelled due to an illness. His intonation suggests the illness was an excuse taken to wriggle out of the show. She gives him a fierce and rightful reality check: he has no idea what performing takes out of her. Maria starts in a dreamy haze, but in time Larraín’s mysterious direction becomes clearer. The fan encounter scene is a small but mighty cue of humanity.

The film calls attention to the haunting dichotomy between public and private personas. Ever since Maria was a young girl living in Greece, she had been singing for everyone but herself. Fast-forward to 1970s Paris, where Maria lives out her final act discreetly in her apartment, having spent years in the public eye. Behind closed doors, she finds herself in a perpetual state of reckoning. Her talent feels out of reach. Her identity feels faded into unrecognizable territory. Her apartment is full of reminders; pieces of music, glamorous wardrobe, a grand piano. But the piano never seems to be in the right spot. For a place called home, Maria’s apartment resembles more of a waiting room, in which she can’t fully be free. There’s a disconnect between the soprano and her work, which gives the film dramatic tension. By spending time with the character in such close proximity, enhanced with several stunning close-ups, Larraín gives a window into Maria’s humanity beyond her “Las Callas” stage presence. The film defines her not by a chronicle of greatest hits, but by the memories that left a lasting impression on her, moments that she will carry inside forever.

For Jackie and Spencer, the focus on specific moments in history helped shaped the narrative structures of those films. Maria sings to a much more fluid and arbitrary tune. Screenwriter Steven Knight navigates the days leading up to Maria’s death. The dialogue can be heavy-handed at times, which creates moments of stagy character interactions and overdrawn impositions. A prime example is the inclusion of Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a journalist who follows Maria around Paris with a television crew. While clear in its hallucinatory effect, the dynamic lacks emotional impact. Thankfully, these moments are sporadic as the film prioritizes other supporting characters, who evoke a more compelling reaction. One of the most powerful scenes in the film features a conversation between Maria and her sister Yakinthi (Valeria Golino). Yakinthi essentially encourages Maria to leave the past behind and move forward, but it’s not that simple. This moment gives us a glimpse of the sisters’ emotionally charged past, and conveys the weight of Maria’s life experiences on her shoulders.

Larraín takes empathetic creative liberties to shape the narrative of Maria around her close proximity to death. The character transcends time and space, as though yearning for freedom outside of herself. In her apartment, she hides pills and avoids doctor visits. Her voice carries through the grand, exquisitely lit halls only for her butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino), maid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), and poodles to hear. Spells of loneliness and misunderstanding reach her in open spaces, too; whether sitting in a cafe that assumedly plays her music (she does not listen to herself), or warming up her vocals in an empty opera house (she struggles to channel the Las Callas voice her pianist wants). Autumnal walks in the park turn into theatrical hallucinations of big vocal performances. Maria’s life is a stage, and the film guides her from the shadows to the spotlight through gorgeous visual interpretation.

Angelina Jolie personifies Maria Callas’s vulnerable, messy, mysterious journey with a soul-stirring performance. Simply put, the film would not work without her. The elegant hallways of Maria’s apartment would be cold and empty without Jolie’s astonishing commitment to getting under the character’s skin. Not only does she embody the physicality and stage presence of Callas in her prime, but Jolie also captures the fragmented mind of a woman on the verge of losing her voice years later. Maria’s glory days are conveyed through stunning black-and-white imagery and the use of Callas’ real voice. Jolie herself has an incredibly alluring presence, and she channels that energy into portraying Callas at the top of her game. These flashback scenes add context to the Maria we meet in 1970s Parisian isolation; we come to know from her relationship with admirer Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) that she had so long been singing for the pleasure of others. In Paris, Jolie channels a more fragile energy as she floats across rooms, yet she also possesses a fierce inner power. While the flashbacks present Maria through the lens of an outsider, the Paris timeline gets up close and personal into the character's soul, and Jolie excels at drawing out these layers.

In addition to Jolie’s tremendous work, cinematographer Edward Lachman deserves some time in the spotlight for crafting one of the most beautiful-looking films of the year. Known for his frequent collaborations with Todd Haynes on such films as Carol (2015) and Far From Heaven (2002), Lachman may have found another dream pairing in Larraín. The two worked together previously on El Conde (2023), which earned Lachman his third Oscar nomination. Each and every frame of Maria looks sumptuous and comes alive like a moving painting. Lachman aligns with Larraín’s evocative, dreamlike sensibilities as a director. The warm color palettes and textures of Callas’ apartment convey a world within a world, a life outside the limelight. The striking black-and-white images only amplify the impressive level of detail, from the production design to the costume design. The film has a disciplined visual language, much like an opera itself which combines so many different art forms and training techniques to convey emotion. The opening montage, in which Maria sings directly into the camera, sets the tone for how much discipline goes into creating such transformative art.

One could never truly know what went on inside Maria Callas’ apartment, or inside her head, except La Callas herself. While the dialogue of Maria can be heavy-handed in attempting to fill in her history, Larraín and Jolie operate in the same melodic rhythm to capture an essence of what made this woman so iconic. By the end of the film, the subject remains a mystery, and her impact reverberates nonetheless.

Maria arrives in theatres on November 27 and on MUBI's streaming platform on December 11.