R | 2h 4m | Biopic, Opera| Dec. 11, 2024
It’s sumptuous, stylish, and oft chiaroscuro-lit, as a film based on the life of one of the most acclaimed opera stars probably should be. However, let me state the most important information for potential viewers at the outset: “Maria” moves at a glacial pace and will very likely appeal exclusively to opera buffs and the Angelina Jolie fan club.
Story
The film opens on the elegant diva’s world, in her final days in Paris, in 1977. She lives an isolated existence, like so many faded stars, listening to her old recordings, in the dark, and attempting to relive the old glories of her storied career in her imagination.
She’s now 53 years old. Her legendary voice has long since faded, the limelight has lapsed, scandals have tanked her career, and the longtime love of her life, Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) has traded her in for Jacqueline Kennedy.
She’s got two dedicated servants: housekeeper Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) and butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino). Like “Driving Miss Daisy,” Callas is condescending and imperious, but her tiny makeshift family unit knows her too well (and they know that she knows that they know her too well) to take her threats seriously. They intrude and overstep boundaries constantly in order to keep her from being her worst enemy. These moments are subtly tinged with humor—and touching.
Callas shot to fame in 1949 when she alternated between Wagner’s “Die Walküre” and Bellini’s “I Puritani” in Venice, the vocal equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen and living to tell the tale. In “Maria,” Callas is attempting to bring her voice back up to peak form. Her voice had been strained by singing some of the repertoire too early and too quickly, not to mention her substance abuse, in her later years, of the highly addictive sedative Mandrax.
A journalist (Kodi Smit-McPhee) follows her around with a film crew asking pointed questions, and bringing back painful memories of Onassis and her strained relationship with her sister Yakinthi (Valeria Golino). She also revisits key memories from her youth, when her mother (Lydia Koniordou) ruthlessly pushed her to be a better singer.
Jolie
While it’s a blatant Oscar bid on the same level as Timotheé Chalamet’s current turn as Bob Dylan, it must be said that there’s probably no other actress working right now who could have made themselves this at home, in this role, better than Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie.
She’s got the perfect look for it and did due diligence with seven months of vocal training to the point where she was able to blend her own singing voice with that of Callas’s seamlessly. In other words, she needed to appear to be actually singing when Callas’s voice was dubbed over hers. She accomplishes this to the point where every word sung is intentional, fulfilled, every emotion powerfully felt, as if Callas’s own voice is projecting through her, attempting desperately to reclaim, with every breath intake, the impeccable control that’s long since slipped away.
It’s a solemn depiction of Callas’s last days that plays out a bit like a Greek tragedy. Before the scene fades to black, we’re left with the image of a woman desperate to die with every part of her intact. Great talent is a double-edged sword, especially for artists addicted to the adoration.
