Although she will probably never give a recital of arias at La Scala, and although there is no indication that a tragic end awaits her in the near future due to excessive consumption of sedatives – fortunately, especially for her – Angelina Jolie She is undoubtedly the ideal performer to embody Maria Callas. Few actresses, after all, are as familiar as she is with the over scrutiny that the Greek soprano suffered, and few know as well as she does the kind of superlative fame associated with the term diva, invariably used to describe Callas.
And, surely, those connections help explain the intense dazzling power that Jolie squanders in the center of the biopic ‘Maria’, through which it is not only her first prominent acting job in many years but also one of the most incontestable of his career. “I needed to spend time with my family”the actress said today at the Venice Film Festival, where the film is competing for a place in the awards, to explain this hiatus. “And, thanks to that time, I now feel even more grateful to have the opportunity to be an artist, and to be part of this creative world.”
‘Maria’, let us remember, is the final installment of the trilogy of biographical films that Pablo Larraín has dedicated to famous women of the 20th century who lived under a extreme pressure for the public role that they had to play; in ‘Jackie’ (2016) she transformed Natalie Portman into Jacqueline Kennedy, in ‘Spencer’ (2021) she turned Kristen Stewart into Diana, Princess of Wales, and here she recreates the days that the soprano spent in Paris just before her death in September 1977, locked up much of the time in her home, harassed by her celebrity but also by her pathological need for adoration, trapped by her addiction to drugs. barbiturateshaunted by memories of a mother who apparently tried to prostitute her to please Nazi soldiers and of her destructive affair with the tycoon Aristotle Onassis -who would end up abandoning her precisely because of Kennedy-, and desperate for the irreparable loss of her most precious treasure, her own voice.
And at all times shows an attitude overwhelmingly reverent both towards the title character and the actress who plays her. The Chilean’s camera exudes love and devotion through all the close-ups he dedicates to Callas/Jolie’s performance, and all those scenes in which he contemplates her playing ‘Tosca’ and ‘La Traviata’ in front of devoted audiences, being betrayed by her vocal cords when the instrument can no longer play, and displaying elegance even when swallowing pills four at a time.
Structuring a film about Maria Callas in the manner of an opera may seem obvious, but it is understandable that Larraín found it inevitable to fall into the temptation of doing so. ‘Maria’ is divided into three acts and an epilogue, it links musical moments that convey the portrait of its protagonist, and it aims to gradually transform her into a reflection of one of those tragic heroines which he performed on the most prestigious stages.
And why, then, does the film not show even an iota of the capacity for move and the heightened emotionality inherent to any opera worth its salt? Perhaps it is because its mix of flashbacks, dreamlike scenes and sound interludes is perceived too calculated and repetitive, or because Larraín does not allow his protagonist to advance through a consistent arc, or because at a conceptual and structural level it has the makings of primarily intellectual exercise.
That the only flashes of dramatic effectiveness that ‘Maria’ manages to provide are based on beginning and ending in the Jolie’s acting effectiveness It should come as no surprise when you consider that the respective leading ladies of Jackie and Spencer were also the best parts of those films. Both Portman and Stewart ended up receiving an Oscar nomination thanks to them. There is little doubt that Jolie will also achieve one.
