“Maria” (2024) Review

The best part of Pablo Larraín’s films about 20th-century women is that he digs more into the psychological horror than the historical decadence of his subjects. His past films of Jackie and Spencer could have easily gotten lost in the stately allure, but they never relent into peeling back the extra layer of anxiety and existential dread. Maria is in the same camp for delivering the greater drama on famed opera singer Maria Callas in her twilight. While this isn’t a highlight of Larraín’s unofficial trilogy, it’s still a gorgeous film with all of the director’s hallmarks, scattered as they may be.

Grounding the film is a nuanced performance by Angelina Jolie. She plays the aging Maria Callas, who cakes on confidence like makeup, hiding the fears of her life coming undone. Her health is failing, and her singing career is over, but she still treats every day with control. The only people most present in her life are her butler, Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino), and maid, Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher). They have pledged such loyalty that they’ll indulge her singing voice as still being robust. When singing, Maria gets lost in her head about what it felt like to be on stage and playing to a crowd. She also longs for fame, hallucinating a filmmaker (Kodi Smit-McPhee) trying to interview her throughout.

But Maria is not such a pitiful person in this state. Part of her realizes she is losing her mind and doesn’t care. When Ferruccio questions if the reporter Maria plans to meet with is real, Maria tells him it doesn’t matter what is real. What matters is that she is in control. As the black-and-white flashbacks reveal, this is a woman who has spent her whole life being in service of others, whether it was for her mother during the war or for scummy businessmen like Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer). She slowly begins to assert herself more in owning the life she wants. When President John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson) corners her about singing at the White House, she fully controls the conversation, highlighting how she might have similar class status but that it doesn’t warrant friendship. There’s something so fulfilling when she approaches Onassis on his deathbed, where he asks if she’ll still be present in his afterlife, to which she essentially responds, “I’ll have to check my schedule.”

There’s a lavish nature to how Larraín films this final-days story, more like a dream mashed into aged footage. The picture will dart between grand showcases of an operatic chorus that Maria chooses to get lost within and the old footage of a 1970s documentary. The fascination with the technology also coats the picture with a bitter realization. She surrounds herself with people complimenting her voice and refuses to listen to recordings, believing her performance matters more than the records she has been immortalized within. But then she requests a tape recorder to listen back to her practice sessions, only to be horrified that she does not sound as good as she thought. It’s an opinion that most people have of their voices, but it’s especially disheartening for somebody like Maria, who has held her own voice in such high regard for many years.

Jolie’s performance has so many layers to how she interacts with the various characters. When speaking with the fictious reporter, she’s poetic and assertive, as though she’s mentally writing her memoir with incredible grace. When speaking with her help, she’s confident in her voice to such a concerning degree in how it coincides with her medication. There’s bitterness and fear in the few times that she accepts a practice session at the theater, always being cautious of her abilities, even when she gets lost in imagining herself on stage. Then, there’s her tearful breakdown with her sister, Yakinthi (Valeria Golino), where Maria starts recognizing the horror of losing her perceptions of reality, gravitating towards her family like a lighthouse amid the mental fog. It’s fascinating to watch soldier on the path to her demise with her chin up, believing there is another performance over the horizon than an end to all things.

Even if it’s not as psychologically engaging, Maria still has some of that Pablo Larraín flavor of real-life women brooding with their fame. The film settles too easily for making Maria’s life a little simpler than it needed to be, where clear lines are drawn about her decaying mental state. Even for not being as bold with focus, there are still a lot of wondrous and intriguing moments to decipher in the wilting of an opera star. It’s a bow with grace as Jolie throws herself into a role that demands a little more than singing and stage presence. It’s not as profound as Larraín’s similar films, but it still captivates for the territory it dares to explore.