Thinkin, how much sad did you think I hadDid you think I had in me?Oh, the tragedy …
— So Long, London (Taylor Swift)
As with Jackie and Spencer before it, Pablo Larraín’s Maria assumes you know a good amount about opera singer Maria Callas’s life. That’s a huge assumption as Callas, while incredibly popular and well-known among certain circles, doesn’t provide the same “household name” status as Jackie Kennedy or Princess Diana. That’s a slight issue with Maria as the film covers the last week of her life during which she looks back at better days in love and with her full voice.
Yet, star Angelina Jolie’s astounding, committed, and career-best performance does the heavy lifting for the script. You may not fully understand the details here, but her face guides you through the regret, loss, and hopelessness that, in Steven Knight’s script, plagued Callas until the end.
To appreciate Maria, I suspect you have to give yourself fully to the music offered within the film. He uses recordings of the original Callas’s stunning arias to remind us (and Jolie’s Callas) of what once was. There are performance sequences and beautifully shot sequences of music fantasia as we become lost in Callas’s demented world. The film seems constructed as an Italian opera — you may not fully understand all of the events onscreen or their importance, but the emotional currents of the scenes hit you in the gut. This is Larraín’s most straightforward interpretation of a famed woman’s life, and as such, it suffers from a monotone sense of melancholic monotony. Even the flashback scenes of Maria in love with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) are filled with loss, regret, and longing.
I’m reminded of a sequence toward the end of the film where Callas walks through the streets of Paris (as she often does in the film) and stops upon an orchestra playing an aria in the rain. She then reimagines herself in full costume, surrounded by actors, performing the number as if she were 20 years younger. It’s a gorgeous, vivid moment rendered beautifully by Ed Lachman’s outstanding cinematography, but there’s an inescapable sorrow that permeates the sequence. That’s the issue with focusing on a single period in the subject’s life — it leaves little room for tonal variety.
Maria, however, completely belongs to Angela Jolie who delivers a career-best performance as Callas. Her Callas outwardly portrays confidence while brilliantly providing an undercurrent of complete self-doubt. She holds her head high as a diva should, but the steps she takes are brittle and tentative throughout the film. Jolie also learned to sing for the film and does indeed attempt to replicate Callas’s vocal range. Her failure to do so proves a vital point within the film as she replicates Callas’s waning vocal abilities at the end of her life. It underscores the bravery and commitment Jolie displays while undertaking this role.
At the end of the film, Jolie’s Callas becomes lost in a recreation of her finest days. The scene is both fascinating and deeply sad to behold. This is an actress at the top of her craft who plays with performance notes she’s never shown before. Jolie and Larraín fully commit to the melancholia, and if you’re ready for that sort of thing, it’s a wonder to behold as a performance.
Maria will stream this fall exclusively on Netflix.
