Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in a scene from Maria.Pablo Larraín/The Associated Press
Maria
Directed by: Pablo Larrain
Written by: Steven Knight
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher
Classification: TBD 124 minutes
Even if you’ve never heard of Maria Callas, the opera diva whose voice so enraptured audiences and critics alike that they wondered if it was a divine gift, it is quite likely you have heard one of her renditions of a famous aria. Equally famous for being temperamental, Callas stopped singing on stage in 1965, from then on living the life of a near-recluse.
Maria, the final instalment of Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s trilogy, centres around the final week of Callas’s life. The previous two films in the series – Jackie and Spencer, starring Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart, respectively, in the titular roles of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana – aimed to let us into the private lives of women who were considered muses for the masses. Maria has a similar ambition, except this muse is at a further remove – given how opera is often considered an elitist, highbrow art form. By focusing his lens on the personality of the diva, as opposed to her artistry, Larrain doesn’t truly give us insight into what made Maria into “La Callas.” We get glimpses of the tragedies and scandals in her life that inspired and informed her powerful – and often divisive – vocals. But we don’t understand the artistry behind the voice.
Maria begins with an extreme close-up of Angelina Jolie, as Callas, singing. Jolie is stunning in the black-and-white scene, the camera capturing those famed angles of her jaw and collarbones, her face showing the strain of the performance. Jolie reportedly trained for several months for the role, and her voice is blended with Callas’s powerful vocalizations throughout the soundtrack. And yet, you don’t really accept that Jolie is, in fact, singing. A sense of artifice pervades the shot and, by extension, the film.
From left, Alba Rohrwacher, as Bruna Lupoli, Pierfrancesco Favino, as Ferruccio Mezzadri, and Angelina Jolie, as Maria Callas, in a scene from Maria.Pablo Larraín/The Associated Press
The story begins with Callas’s death on Sept. 16, 1977. Her body is hidden, and we look through the door frame as her Man Friday, Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino), and housekeeper, Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), mourn their mistress – as if frozen in a fresco. We’re then taken into the events that unfolded a week prior, as well as episodes from Callas’s troubled life told through a series of flashbacks. The film, divided into acts, plays out like an opera.
We see Jolie gliding about her opulent Paris apartment, self-medicating with Mandrax (also known as Quaaludes) and other pills – and prone to punishing Ferruccio when he has the temerity to question her pill consumption. When he insists that she see a doctor, Callas orders him to move the piano from one end of the apartment to the other and tells him to consult the doctor himself for his bad back – from moving the piano. She’s a beloved tyrant to both Ferruccio and Bruna, who walk on eggshells around her.
Chilean director Pablo Larrain discusses his latest film Maria and his love for the woman who inspired it
Although she has given up performing, Callas sneaks off to rehearsals with pianist Jeffrey Tate (Stephen Ashfield). She cannot give up music. But her health is failing – her voice is not what it used to be. And she’s frequently imagining things – including, perhaps, a series of TV interviews with a journalist named Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The interviews give us occasion to dip into Callas’s past, both personal and onstage, including her long-time dalliance with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer).
Maria is gorgeous visually. The movie moves from sepia-tinted postcard vignettes of Paris in the seventies to stark, black-and-white renderings of Callas’s earlier life. We see Onassis courting her with the confidence of a business magnate who can claim to be a powerful, ugly man. Then we’re back into the gritty sepia tones of Callas performing on concert stages across the world. Or back on the streets of Paris during her final week, when she asks Ferruccio to make an appointment at a restaurant where people would know and adore her.
Caspar Phillipson, as JFK, left, and Haluk Bilginer, as Aristotle Onassis, in a scene from Maria.Pablo Larraín/The Associated Press
Through it all, Jolie carries about a regal mien, her hair either done up in elaborate beehives or cascading in curls, her eyes flicked with cat eyeliner. Her voice tarries in that mid-Atlantic accent of the fifties and sixties, affecting a timbre that suggests gravitas but veering into Katharine Hepburn territory every now and again. Jolie also seems to be trying to channel Callas’s inner disposition – constantly clearing her throat, for example, to underline Callas’s challenges with her voice. Sometimes it works, other times it seems like very elaborate play-acting – especially given the frequently florid dialogue.
One could draw comparisons between Jolie, who hasn’t been seen in a film in three years, and Callas. But Maria doesn’t venture into that deeper, more elusive questioning of what makes an artist compelling. It’s an admirable facsimile of an icon that inspires you to seek out the original. And that might be the real gift of the film – and a fitting tribute.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)
