Pablo Larraín adds another disintegrating diva to Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021) with Maria which premiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival.
Larraín opens Maria with a pastel typeface in light blue, pink, and yellow before a dark red marble room takes over the screen. The camera slowly pans the walls, which feel like the inside of a museum, without stopping to peer through a door left ajar, hinting at a tragedy. There are bored police officers in the corner, unrushed doctors examining the body, and two witnesses speaking steadily to investigators. Whatever happened here, there is little concern from those present; it is final.
From the moment she appears as the notorious and adored opera star Maria Callas, Angelina Jolie fills the screen. The character is subdued, and most of Maria’s turmoil is internal, so it would be imprecise to say that she commands the screen. However, there is a curious puzzle and something magnetic that nevertheless keeps your interest in this self-involved and self-deprecating lady.
Larraín doesn’t shy away from his subject and sets up Jolie for a song from her first scene. Opera lovers will be able to judge better if her singing is up to the demands of the role, but to this laywoman, it was fitting for what it needed to achieve. The voice isn’t meant to be the lead anyhow. It is Jolie’s performance, albeit with an obvious voiceover, that we’re here to enjoy.
Jolie does herself proud in this widely emphasized first big-screen role in three years. She doesn’t just emulate a poised leading lady of the music stage; there is a lot of Angelina, the star, now tamed into admirable composure. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that this calmness and self-possession require a good deal of medication and alcohol.
Larraín once again returns to his fascination with well-known women who stumble into opiates in attempts to survive the days that make up their life. There is always a supernatural element of insanity to them, a result of the demands placed on them as women in the public eye. But with Maria, not much is achieved by showing us this, at least not about the protagonist herself, who could have been any wealthy woman with imposter syndrome trying to find something valuable inside her that the outside world seems to worship her for.
Surprisingly, those who do stand out are Maria’s dutiful house servants, who care for her as if she were their own child. An especially charming scene between Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher shows them having a meal together, recounting their day. Or another where Jolie is a welcome imposter as the trio relax by playing cards. None of the flash mob chorus scenes on the streets of Paris or flashbacks to Callas’s most popular roles conjure the same lightness and magnetism.
Maria is most reminiscent of last year’s Venice premiere Priscilla: an ambitious feature about a fragile leading lady trying and succumbing to the weight of the expectations of fame. Whatever Larraín is looking to comment on regarding the position of women in society—to use musical jargon—falls flat. But he weaves a pleasing melody just the same.
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