Maria

I have to say director Pablo Larrain's 2024 entry into his iconic 20th-century women trilogy was a disappointment. It starts with the casting as Angelina Jolie may be too iconic herself to portray supreme diva Maria Callas, the least remembered of the trio, the other two being "Jackie" (2016) and Diana in "Spencer" (2021). Jolie conveys the necessary self-possession to carry off the regal image of the world's greatest opera singer, but physically she looks too skeletal to emulate convincingly the more robust figure Callas struck. Written by Steven Knight, the lugubrious, longish film covers the last week of Callas's life in 1977 Paris, a fictionalized account with inevitable flashbacks that cumulatively plays out like a ghost story. All the production elements like the burnished cinematography and set details are impressively handled, but Larrain's creative choices are more arguable, for example, the hallucinogenic images of choruses of people singing back to her in public spaces. There is the ambiguous role of an interviewer (opaquely played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) with the same name as her prescription medication who forces her to confront her legacy. Some of the flashbacks signal more intriguing elements to her story like her rather inchoate relationship with Aristotle Onassis, her traumatizing encounters with Nazis when she was a child, and an intriguing conversation with JFK (played by Caspar Phillipson cast in the same, somewhat inconsequential role in "Jackie"). Her cloistered existence is leavened only by two devoted servants played poignantly by Pierfrancesco Favina and Alba Rohrwacher. Still Jolie's star power has a showcase befitting of her singular talent to convey hubris and vulnerability at almost the same time.

This movie came as a pleasant surprise to me.

It is not only the great,studied performance by Jolie,an actress that hadn't really convinced me of her ability to act up to now. Nevertheless,in this movie,all the self-admiring,borderline narcissistic traits are absent.

Jolie,immerses herself in Maria's fragile, overall declining character and produces a more than convincing portrait worth accolades.

The representation of the era is quite meticulous too.

The really pleasant surprises are the directorial approach and the screenplay.

Focusing on her last week before dying it has a balanced approach to her memories through few flashbacks,her past and current relations,her adoration of music and opera,her failing health,her feeble attempts for a comeback,her warped perception of reality through the use of a slew of barbiturates,her nostalgia,her need for adulation and love. All in proper doses.

A fine two hours spent getting in touch with Maria..not the Callas!!!

What was the point of this movie really?

I learned nothing about Maria. There was zero character development or story. We are quite literally just following this "woman" through the last 5 days of her life and she has these random flashbacks which neither help the story nor serve any meaningful purpose. Those flashbacks are extravagant and long. It's clearly that they were supposed to be the main thing carrying the movie but not only did they not do that, they simply distracted and annoyed me more than anything else.

Angelina was great but her character was completely robbed of any life or emotion. Just a dull shell of someone who "used to be" great. How is someone supposed to like that main character??

I see some people complaining that the music was too little but I think the opposite - it was too much. I didn't want to watch an opera or listen to opera music. Maybe some, sure, but I was here for the drama and I didn't get any of that.

I can tell the script tried to be clever but didn't accomplish that either. Angelina delivers one line after another as if they're the greatest one liners ever but instead they're these boring sentences that even a toddler could have written.

Overall, I have no idea why this movie was made. I gave it an extra star for the effort and the production which was great. But even that is way too generous.

The surprise of this glum biopic is at the end credits that show the real Maria Callas. And she's smiling! She's laughing! She's even...gasp...having fun!! Amazing, since, with the exception of a scene toward the end where she's playing cards with her butler and cook, you can get old waiting for a light moment from this misery fest. And when director Pablo Lorrain isn't drowning you in doom (the film should have been titled "Death In Paris") scenarist Steven Knight is showering you with pretension in dialogue that is excessively florid even by the standards of folks who make their living in opera.

So once again we have a biopic of a creative near genius without the creativity or the genius. Just endless self pity and self destruction. If it were not for the considerable acting talents of Ms. Jolie this thing would be utterly unwatchable. Well, that's not really true. Cinematographer Ed Lachman's beautiful evocation of the city of light makes it eminently watchable. And the music, of course, is heart breakingly lovely. But then Lorraine and Knight have to go and muck things up again with their relentless rain cloud of a movie. Give it a C plus.

I am sure this film was made with great care and love, BUT what it lacked the most of, in my opinion is BREATH.

Opera singers learn how to controle their breath so to captivate ours. And I agree with the other less favourable reviews that the opening scene really was a bad example of lip-synching particularly because I could not see ms Jolie breathe!

Of course La Callas lived a glamorous life but to me the focus seemed to be more directed towards the visual in this movie.

This is a film that made me stop watching it to the end, and I am sorry for it. I too had high hopes for these two iconic ladies.