2025 Reviews – Maria

Okay 🤔 So director Pablo Larraín likes to take famous women of history and direct movies about them. I’ve seen Jackie, and Spencer, but I think there’s more. And I was massively taken by Spencer – for a practical work for fiction, in all intents and purposes, utilising the image of Princess Diana above all else; I felt the message meant to be delivered, even though I don’t usually go for those sorts of warps of history (Blonde 🤮). So I think Maria must get the full review treatment here, and I’m expecting a movie with gravitas.

Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) is a retired, and broken, opera singer, and the movie tells you right away that she is in her final week, as she plans to make a grand re-entry into her mastered field. For companionship, she really only has her devoted butler, Ferrucio (Pierfrancesco Favino), and dutiful housemaid, Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), as she takes too many pills and fantasizes about cameramen and reporters coming to interview her for television. Maria walks the streets of her favoured locations around Paris, attending rehearsals and restaurants, while flashbacks detail her once very real life of fame.

The star of the show is the scenery. This movie never wastes an opportunity for a long shot to showcase just how stunning Paris can be, along with Maria’s extravagant home. And yet, as I’ve said before, long shots aren’t the best at breeding closeness between subjects and audience – although I get a feeling like Maria is being swallowed up by her giant house, which is probably part of the movie’s intention, as is the way she is placed like a fitted piece in her acquiescent city backgrounds. Ultimately, though, beyond the beauty, I failed to really care about Maria, because I don’t know her. She is quirky, of course – forthright too – but I think I could’ve cared more about Maria if I cared more about opera, or was aware of her previously. Yet, the top echelon of movies can really have you investing in any art form, or human endeavour, that you may not have had any interest in before, and Maria is not that movie for me. Maria is a bit like The Iron Lady, where we are watching a once vibrant flower wilt, and who’s reputation should speak for itself, assuming I knew what that is, and I don’t. I liked the idea of the internal TV reporter following Maria around, allowing for Maria to reflect or contend with burning questions outwardly for the movie, as well as detailing her madness. I wonder if Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) doubles as a stand-in for director Larraín, or writer collaborator Steven Knight, who’ve fallen in love with Maria during the preparation for this movie? I don’t know, and I won’t know, unless I chance upon a revealing production interview 👀 What’s most interesting though, is that this movie states the same dude supposedly married Jackie Kennedy after our Maria, tying Larraín’s current trilogy exploring women of the 20^th Century, in a neat circle. I wonder what came first – the admiration and desire to make a movie about Maria’s life, or research into Jackie that led to another fascinating female of history 🤔

There were whispers that Angelina Jolie would be in the running to get nominated for the big golden award, but it didn’t happen. And I think that was the right call… Still, Jolie might be in one of her defining roles; I could see it featuring around eighth on a list of Jolie’s ten best performances, off the top of my head, detailed as defiant with those accompanying piercingly fierce stares. But I’m not sure if there’s much else to it. I do think Jolie does sink into the persona, and it is a feather in her cap – admirable and commendable, along with all those other words that used to refer to a solid pat on the back 😏 I believe Jolie had to undergo opera training for some of the scenes, but there’s also quite clear dubbing going on, and – I don’t know – I suppose I don’t ever want to be able to tell, even if an actress can only mimic what is presumed to be one of the best voices of all time. A Complete Unknown showcased voice-dubbing as well, I’m sure, but at least that was always Timothée Chalamet singing the songs and making the performance his own. Here, I’m harsher.

Jolie’s attempts to get into Maria’s fraying psyche are achieved effectively, but the material doesn’t resonate as strongly as what comes before by Larraín, with Spencer. Although, did I mention how this movie is beautiful? Because it is beautiful, and I audibly gawked at the trees besetting Maria as she leaves her first singing rehearsal of the film 😮 Absolutely exquisite! The colour grading is expertly used, often making shots of this movie appear like a nostalgic postcard, which only extenuates the incandescent gorgeousness – and it’s a golden feat of a movie, undoubtedly. I also like how Larraín doesn’t feel rushed to tell his stories, and this movie’s slow pacing and score allows one to settle into a mood. The dialogue too, can hold that classic wit and be quite snappy, especially early. And yet, I mean, I’ve said it already, haven’t I? Maria is well made, exquisite on the eye, but I’m detached. Plotwise, with a glass half empty, it’s boring.

3.0