Maria

There is this old actors saying in film industry: "It's better to be a working actor, instead of a star",

Actors which often are considered stars, rely on their sex appeal, and personal charisma.

However, as the aging process takes its natural cause, their star power just like with real cosmic stars, burns out and fades away... Therefore being a working actor seems to be better path towards their carrier longevity.

Sometimes actors which are labeled as stars have a huge difficulty to shake off the moniker of a star and in the autumn of their career select projects which are more demanding artistically.

Now, the audiences and critics having them put in a "box", have a difficulty seeing in them something more than a shadow of their former self. However, if given a proper chance, senior actors performance can actually show what they've always were capable of doing, but because of their beauty and sex appeal, they were locked in the image they had to uphold for commercial reasons.

This brings me to 'Maria' a biopic about last week of life of opera Primadonna Maria Callas, which is a part of the trilogy directed by Pablo Larraín together with biopic about Jacky Kennedy 'Jacky' and princess Diana titled' Spenser'. Both lead female performances in previous movies received not only critical acclaim, but also nomination for Oscars.

"Maria Callas is one of the most iconic performers of the 20th century. The film follows the Greek-American soprano as she retreats to Paris after a glamorous and tumultuous life in the public eye, reimagining the legendary diva in her final days as she reckons with her identity and life."

To some extent Pablo's latest biopic seemed to polarize the critics. Some love it and others feel it is rather doll and uneventful. Some critics are extra harsh on Angelina Jolie performance feeling that she does not possess enough internal depth to portrait this complex character without falling into acting clichés.

Apparently Angelina trained opera singing for over half year to be able to try to attempt to vocalize at least in part the mastery of late opera, singing icon. As actors prepare for their roll, especially when the performance is based on a real person, it is ill advised to focus on the characters mannerisms and instead try to convey the inner emotional triggers that the original performer is known for. And therefore the internal approach often takes the charge instead of purely external characterization, which can feel theatrical in medium of film.

Some critics which I personally disagree with points out that although Angelina Jolie portraits the external aspects of Maria Callas character, she does not have enough acting tools to internalize the performance. Apparently between five and 70% of singing has been done by Angelina Jolie herself, which in itself is rather impressive, considering the magnitude of range and talent, the original diva possessed.

This film is mature cinema and what first stands immediately out is absolutely breathtaking cinematography. It has that grand look to it, supported by detailed production and costume design. The camera movement has a mastery to it, with seamless, dolly moves, always creating beautiful depth of field, as camera is tracking the protagonist, revealing a vanishing point that adds depth and three dimensionality to the frame. This aspect in itself gives this film, a feeling of "poetry in motion".

All the supporting performances are rather nuances, with Pierfrancesco Favino as faithful butler and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the documentary filmmaker and Haluk Bilginer as Aristotle Onassis to just name a few.

To larger extent, with 'Maria' Director is leaning towards arthouse cinema in the visual way the story is being shown, and therefore a choice of a lead actress which in her career had a commercial appeal, might be a polarizing casting choice. However I for one, am in the opinion that sometimes actors which are often type casted can break the mold and showcas their true, artistic worth, as it happens in this instant, with this solid performance by Angelina Jolie.

In conclusion, this film is probably best recommended for mature audiences, which are sophisticated enough to appreciate what the Director achieved here.

Again it might not be for everyone's taste, but there is certainly enough quality to justify 2 hours and 4 minutes of your time.

This movie came as a pleasant surprise to me.

It is not only the great,studied performance by Jolie,an actress that hadn't really convinced me of her ability to act up to now. Nevertheless,in this movie,all the self-admiring,borderline narcissistic traits are absent.

Jolie,immerses herself in Maria's fragile, overall declining character and produces a more than convincing portrait worth accolades.

The representation of the era is quite meticulous too.

The really pleasant surprises are the directorial approach and the screenplay.

Focusing on her last week before dying it has a balanced approach to her memories through few flashbacks,her past and current relations,her adoration of music and opera,her failing health,her feeble attempts for a comeback,her warped perception of reality through the use of a slew of barbiturates,her nostalgia,her need for adulation and love. All in proper doses.

A fine two hours spent getting in touch with Maria..not the Callas!!!

I have to say director Pablo Larrain's 2024 entry into his iconic 20th-century women trilogy was a disappointment. It starts with the casting as Angelina Jolie may be too iconic herself to portray supreme diva Maria Callas, the least remembered of the trio, the other two being "Jackie" (2016) and Diana in "Spencer" (2021). Jolie conveys the necessary self-possession to carry off the regal image of the world's greatest opera singer, but physically she looks too skeletal to emulate convincingly the more robust figure Callas struck. Written by Steven Knight, the lugubrious, longish film covers the last week of Callas's life in 1977 Paris, a fictionalized account with inevitable flashbacks that cumulatively plays out like a ghost story. All the production elements like the burnished cinematography and set details are impressively handled, but Larrain's creative choices are more arguable, for example, the hallucinogenic images of choruses of people singing back to her in public spaces. There is the ambiguous role of an interviewer (opaquely played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) with the same name as her prescription medication who forces her to confront her legacy. Some of the flashbacks signal more intriguing elements to her story like her rather inchoate relationship with Aristotle Onassis, her traumatizing encounters with Nazis when she was a child, and an intriguing conversation with JFK (played by Caspar Phillipson cast in the same, somewhat inconsequential role in "Jackie"). Her cloistered existence is leavened only by two devoted servants played poignantly by Pierfrancesco Favina and Alba Rohrwacher. Still Jolie's star power has a showcase befitting of her singular talent to convey hubris and vulnerability at almost the same time.

I agree with blanche-2 and other reviewers, as a former opera student for many years and opera lover and connoisseur.

This may be a delight for those who like Angelina Jolie and like to see a beatiful face on screen, but nothing here resembles the unique quality of divine Maria.

For starters, this is the worse lip-sync I have seen in my life in a biopic of a singer, and it was a surprise that a movie supposed to be a first-rate production went ahead ignoring this major failure. After all, singing is to the essence of the film, it is not a secondary scene. And if you want to recreate Callas life using real recordings, the performative effort must be flawless. Of course it is as hard as demanding, but if you want to compare Jolie's playback what a remarkable, well-executed example, please watch La Mome, the biopic about Edith Piaf, and find delight in Marion Cotillard's perfect, unbelievably good execution. (Jolie's lack of sync is as unbelievable.)

Then, the physique du role. Jolie is one of the most beautiful actresses of our time. But it has physical disparities with Callas which cannot be solved with make-up, and the lack of resemblance spoils the effort. Callas's beauty was tempered, life-chiseled, acquired, a result of a deep effort at self-awareness and self-hardening and reshaping her destiny. That kind of subjective process simply «showed» in her regal attitude, and imposing scenic presence. Jolie is a born beauty, her beauty a gift given from the start, and, in my opinion, she did not manage to convey the dramatic depth of Callas's appeal enough as to create the magical impression that we are seeing a credible Callas.

Also, for those who love opera, Jolie's embouchure (the singers' «mouth mould») is a joke, nothing close to the unmistaken bel canto mouth frame which opera singers (and Callas) distinctively employ. It may seem an unimportant detail, but the sum of inconsistencies and lack of attention to detail ends up being irritating.

I have not listed other observations already pointed by reviewers, which which I concur, related to the use of music score, plot and realism. I really wanted to like the movie, but it was a total disappointment to me.

I am sure this film was made with great care and love, BUT what it lacked the most of, in my opinion is BREATH.

Opera singers learn how to controle their breath so to captivate ours. And I agree with the other less favourable reviews that the opening scene really was a bad example of lip-synching particularly because I could not see ms Jolie breathe!

Of course La Callas lived a glamorous life but to me the focus seemed to be more directed towards the visual in this movie.

This is a film that made me stop watching it to the end, and I am sorry for it. I too had high hopes for these two iconic ladies.