Maria

First things first: Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) is dead. The scene taking place in the adjourning room is a slow-moving and silent one – medics prep a stretcher for her body, butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) watches over, with maid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) trudging aimlessly through a lavish Paris apartment, now bereft of its mistress. The camera lingers here, observing through open doors from far off, staring like a housekeeper awaiting instructions. Maria has only just begun, but Callas, arguably the 20th century’s most important opera singer the world over, has already died of a heart attack at 53 – a final blip on the troubled timeline of her later years that included struggles with her voice, a bitter public rivalry, and a scandalous affair with the wealthy shipping tycoon who would go on to wed Jacqueline Kennedy.

Starting with Jackie (2016), continuing with Spencer (2021), and now concluding with Maria, director Pablo Larraín has spent a considerable portion of the last eight years with some of the most enigmatic women of the past century. Placed alongside the former first lady and the late princess of Wales, Callas’ name is perhaps the least known to audiences here in the States. It’s an interesting choice for this finale of sorts, especially considering the fan-hiring that occurred around the turn of the ’20s that put the director at the helm of a rumored Britney Spears biographical feature. Instead of attempting an even bigger step up from Diana or trying to tackle such a hot-button (and ongoing) story as Spears’, the filmmaker and Spencer screenwriter Stephen Knight go someplace smaller and decidedly less expected. And Maria benefits from it.

After the establishing events of the opening scene, a highly stylized montage of black-and-white, full-color, 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm photography takes the viewer back in time: sold-out performances, lively crowds, adoring fans, enormous posters, luxe vacations, flashy parties. Spliced between, Callas sings directly to the camera. Jolie lip-syncs, La Divina’s inimitable voice kept intact, no attempt at an imitation made, creating a stark contrast with other music-heavy releases of this awards-season cycle – Wicked (2024) and A Complete Unknown (2024) – that featured live singing on set. Although disconcerting at first, hearing Callas’ voice but watching Jolie’s mouth, it gradually feels more natural as the technique is repeated throughout. Eventually, we land one week before the death date of Sept. 16, 1977. From here, Maria marches solemnly toward the end at the beginning.

Acts are broken up by a clapperboard for a sort of film-within-a-film: Mandrax, a sedative Callas abused, becomes the name of an imaginary reporter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) conducting a wide-ranging interview that spans her difficult childhood to her as-difficult circumstances in the movie’s present. (Tim Meadows voice: “Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays.”) Beyond being a laughable biopic trope, it’s also similar to the Nameless Journalist device employed in Larraín’s Jackie. In this light, it’s hard not to notice the similarities to Noah Oppenheim’s Jackie script — and, for that matter, its comparative shortcomings. The two are practically sidequels, revolving around the same circles and even re-using Caspar Phillipson as John F. Kennedy. 

As a standalone, it achieves what it set out to do. Satisfyingly surreal and adequately odd, Jolie and Larraín’s tribute to La Divina and the days leading up to her passing shouldn’t be a disappointment for fans of the so-called Lady in Heels series, by any means. However, as a part three of three, it stands as the weakest, most risk-averse of the bunch. It’s a square-peg, round-hole situation: Larraín’s unofficial trilogy-capper would have benefitted from stepping further away from its predecessor, but its chosen subject is too close to the Onassis name to do the story justice without it. Maria can’t do both, and, consequently, it evokes the lingering thought that Jackie simply did it better.