Angelina Jolie captivates in ‘Maria’

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Angelina Jolie glides through the final days of Maria Callas’ short life in Pablo Larraín’s Maria, a dramatic, evocative elegy to the famed soprano. The film is at turns melancholy, biting, and grandly theatrical – a fitting aria for a once-in-a-generation star. In Maria, reality takes a backseat to raw emotion, serving the film more as a dream than a history lesson about La Callas. Early on, she pops some Mandrax and tells her devoted butler, Ferruccio (a simply wonderful Pierfrancesco Favino), that a television crew is on the way. “Are they real?” he wonders.

“As of this morning, what is real and what is not real is my business,” she says calmly and definitively, making a feast out of Steven Knight’s sharp script. It’s one of many great lines and moments for Jolie, whose intensity and resolve belie her fragile appearance. And it’s a signal to the audience as well: Don’t fret about dull facts or that Jolie doesn’t really resemble Callas all that much. This is a biopic as opera – an emotional journey fitting of the great diva, full of flair, beauty, betrayal, revelations and sorrow.

In Maria, we are the companion to a protagonist with an ever-loosening grip on reality, walking with her through Paris, and her life, for one week in September 1977. The images from cinematographer Ed Lachman, playfully shifting in form and style, take us on a scattershot journey through her triumphs on stage, her scandalous romance with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) and her traumatic youth. In the present, at age 53, she sleeps till midday, drinks the minimal calories she ingests, goes to restaurants where the waiters know her name looking for adulation and has visions of performances staged just for her all around the city.

What’s left to live for?

Callas is always immaculately dressed and assured, whether reflecting to the imagined news crew (led by Kodi Smit-McPhee) or attempting to find her voice again. Her instrument had famously diminished, leaving her wondering what’s left to live for. The only consistent praise she gets is from her obedient housemaid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher). It’s no secret that the destination is death. And you suspect that she knows quite well that everything will be a big dimmer when her spotlight is turned off.

Larraín has made a lasting mark on cinema with his unofficial trilogy about women with tragic narratives: Jackie, Spencer, and now Maria. His films offer an antidote to Ryan Murphy’s style-over-substance portrayals of grand dames. However, if Jackie and Spencer didn’t resonate with you, Maria likely won’t either. After three films, audiences are either fully on board or not, with little room for an in-between.

It’s hard to deny that Larraín’s films are incredible showcases for actors. Jolie, as a movie star, is both omnipresent and elusive, rarely stepping in front of the camera. One might wish she’d follow in Nicole Kidman’s footsteps, where quantity never jeopardises quality, and she appears to enjoy it all. Perhaps this is because performances like Jolie’s in Maria are so all-consuming.

In the film, Maria scolds a fan for questioning whether she faked illness to miss a performance, highlighting the total commitment of body and soul required to make it look effortless. This is likely true. Jolie, though not as dramatic about her craft publicly, blurs the lines between character and actor here. Their blend is so seamless and ferocious that you leave with heightened empathy not only for La Callas but for Jolie as well.

In one of the film’s few regrettable scenes, Jolie’s character faces off with John F. Kennedy (no fault of Caspar Phillipson), whose wife has caught the eye of Onassis. Thanks to Jolie’s power and the script, you almost forgive yet another JFK impersonation, especially as it gives her one of the great brush-offs – romantic and withering all at once. Is it a bit much? Of course, but that’s kind of the point of Maria.

Maria, a Netflix release in select theatres now and streaming December 11.