#REVIEW: “MARIA”

Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong

After Jackie and Spencer, two of the most beautiful and empathic biopics of the last ten years, Pablo Larraín turns his camera on Maria Callas, in–you guessed it–MARIA. Set during her final days as she struggles to regain her legendary voice, Maria encapsulates a somber ending to a magnificent life. Callas skips back and forth through time, suffusing even her fondest memories with a shadowy grief. Maria is as much Pablo Larraín‘s vision as Angelina Jolie‘s. She inhabits nearly every frame of the Movie, and it’s just the kind of big, tragic diva movie star rendition that feels destined to be an awards contender in the coming months. As a fan of both artists, I’m sorry to say, I found Maria, both the movie and the performance, pretty dry and unaffecting.

Jolie floats through her home in Paris with a mournful and macabre energy. Her singing voice is lost, which makes her essentially a ghost in her own eyes. Her presence is cold, distant and disaffected. Knowing we’re days from her death and that the movie will make use of her memories, it’s fair to wonder if we’ll find a bittersweet contrast between Maria in the present and past. As we journeyed backward, I felt a massive missed opportunity for Larraín and Jolie. Her eras feel emotionally interchangeable. Though the Screenplay imbues Maria with an ironic, wry quality, Jolie plays every note with a draining solemnity, dragging the Movie’s average length into what feels like days. When Larraín deploys archival footage of the real Callas, her playful, glowing energy is unmistakable. Perhaps Maria posits this personality was a public-facing facade used to drown out real pain, but even if that’s the case, there’s not even a trace of that mask in Jolie’s characterization.

Maria is as gorgeously photographed as its cinematic predecessors Jackie and Spencer, putting stunning architecture, skylines and natural light to great use throughout. It’s easy to get lost in Paris. I could practically smell the bread. In that sense, it’s a transporting picture. Callas‘ recordings are also on full display. It’s unfortunate that despite best efforts, I was never sold on the visceral sense of Maria’s voice emerging from Jolie‘s mouth, but it’s still great art. Apparently, this is the final act in Pablo‘s trilogy of tragic women, and I’d rank the chapters in order of their release, with Maria at a distant third, but it certainly brings the struggles of female stardom into harsh focus.

Mubi release MARIA in theatres November 27, 2024. It arrives on Mubi December 11, 2024.

*The Team had varied reactions to MARIA.  Another perspective below*