Review: ‘Maria’
Angelina Jolie delivers the performance of her career in Pablo Larraín’s Maria, a spellbinding, towering portrait of a complicated, iconic woman.
It’s hard for movie stars to deliver truly transformative performances. When you have a face so recognizable, so synonymous with celebrity, it can be difficult for audiences to make the distinction between actor and role, public persona and cinematic character. Some actors choose to lean into it, delivering “movie star” performances that don’t require much range or acting chops, while others attempt to pursue more transformative roles, disappearing into their characters in an attempt to shake off the air of familiarity they’ve accumulated throughout the years by changing their looks, ways, manners of speaking and even more in an attempt to become another, less recognizable person.
This is why what Angelina Jolie achieves in Maria, the latest film from filmmaker Pablo Larráin, is nothing short of miraculous. Jolie, undeniably one of the most famous people on the planet, truly disappears into her role of Maria Callas, changing her voice, stance, mannerisms and even her glances to capture the essence of the iconic Callas without ever veering into mimicry or cartoonish territory. Jolie sheds almost every aspect of herself to take on the role of the legendary singer, delivering a haunting, searing and unforgettable turn as the tragic Callas, and the best performance of her career in the process.
Maria centers on opera singer Maria Callas in the final days before her passing as she finds herself holed up in her Parisian apartment with only her devoted housemaid (Alba Rohrwacher) and driver (Pierfrancesco Favino) for company. Suffering from an unidentified illness that has laid claim to her iconic voice, Maria is haunted by figures from her past, present and future as she attempts to find her voice again – even if it may kill her in the process.
Much like the two previous films in Larraín’s trilogy about iconic women, Jackie and Spencer, which centered on Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana respectively, Maria is not your conventional biopic; Larraín is uninterested in exploring histories and backstories in a linear fashion, frequently eschewing traditional structures and plot devices in favor of more outlandish storytelling choices, and his films are all the more richer for it. However, as Maria recounts and relives her past to a journalist who may or may not be a hallucination resulting from the bucketloads of medication she’s on, flashbacks and all, Maria is the closest he’s made to a traditional biopic and potentially his most accessible film to date.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Callas is arguably the least famous of the three women Larraín has decided to explore in his trilogy, and Maria is the perfect introduction to the singer for those who may not be familiar with her or her catalogue. Additionally, specific scenes or plot devices that may have come across as overly-sentimental in any other filmmaker’s hands never veer into melodramatic territory, thankfully, even when the film veers dangerously close to it.
And that is a huge credit to the way in which Larraín depicts the three women he has decided to explore in his trilogy; with the utmost respect, empathy and – to quote Maria, “adulation.” When others may have decided to depict Maria (and Jackie and Princess Diana) as a larger-than-life figure to be ogled at and dissected with a microscope, Larraín instead chooses to have her be driving force of her own story. Things don’t just happen to Maria while the audience watches, like spectators watching a caged bird in her attempt to break free. Instead, Larraín allows Maria, like Jackie and Princess Diana before her, to navigate her own narrative with agency and complexity. She is not merely a symbol or an icon to be examined from afar, but a fully realized human being with her own desires, fears, and contradictions. Through Larraín’s lens, Maria is empowered to reclaim her story, allowing viewers to see beyond the surface of her public persona, not only humanizing her but also transforming her from a distant figure of legendary status into a complex, multi-layered person with her own dreams, fears, hopes and insecurities.
Elsewhere, Alba Rohrwacher and Pierfrancesco Favino are genuinely impressive in the supporting roles of Maria’s housemaid and driver respectively, with Favino in particular delivering a strong impression as one of the only reliable forces in Maria’s life. Haluk Bilginer also surprises with a nuanced, layered depiction of Maria’s lover Aristotle Onassis, a story arc that perfectly ties the film to Jackie, the first of Larraín’s trilogy. Onassis is a complex figure who has undeniably had an impact on many of the people who were in his life, and Larraín manages to shed some light onto his story and the ripple effect it had on the people he surrounded himself with.
However, Maria is by far and large the Angelina Jolie show. As Maria slowly starts to lose grasp of reality, Jolie manages to perfectly capture the tragic paradox Callas has found herself in; the further away she gets from her tragic past, the harder she desperately clings to it, refusing to let go of or move on from the unfortunate circumstances that made her the legend she’s known as today. It’s a tragic, haunting look into the inner voice of one of the most legendary and iconic singing voices of all time, and one can’t help but draw inevitable parallels between her life and Jolie’s own, a connection that Jolie herself acknowledged during the press conference at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. In giving Maria a voice, Jolie has, in a sense, also reclaimed her own, bringing to the role a raw authenticity that speaks to the complexities of navigating a life lived in the public eye – all while delivering a stunning, instantly towering performance that has to be seen in order to be believed.
Maria premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
Ahmad W.
Aspiring critic and poster designer.