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Director Pablo Larrain’s third tribute to a feminine icon: “Jackie” 2016, starring Natalie Portman; “Spencer” 2021, gloomy actor, Kristin Stewart and the final film of the trilogy, “Maria” featuring the preeminent Diva, operatic legend, Maria Callas depicted by Angelina Jolie. In essence I found the trinity lacking in pungency, power and engrossment. Possibly Larrain’s awe of the protagonists clouded his sensibilities but not the grandeur of their omnipresent roles, beauty and veneration. “Maria” tops the triad.
Jolie, too beautiful for the part, but graces it with grit; as an actor she is fearless and rises to the Regality of the luminary. The focus of the film is limited in scope: the waning weeks of her life, reminiscing with her alter-ego “Mandrax” (a hypnotic sedative, (Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog”, “Disclaimer”) is her narcissistic voice, longing solely for adulation, for what was, and never to be sung again; remaining upright by the stalwart “Bruna” and “Ferruccio” (Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino) her piano-pushing servants acquiescing to her every caprice. Her dialogue affectations and perpetual use of “hmms” disrupted the harmony of her performance but in her final aria she cements audience approval. There had to be more to this sublime talent.
Maria at one-point states that “music is so enormous it envelopes you in a state of torture; born of misery and poverty”; she is the penultimate courtesan, “Violetta” doomed in love, and unfortunately fate.
THREE STARS!!!
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