A gripe that many have with biography films is that they tend to adhere to the moldy infant-to-death trajectory of its subject’s life. Pablo Larraín scoffs at that approach.
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His string of biopics — 2016’s “Jackie,” 2016’s “Neruda,” 2021’s “Spencer” and his latest on opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) — defy the linear approach and consistently come up with alternative interpretations of the lives, loves and actions of its main characters: Jackie Kennedy, Pablo Neruda, and Princess Diana (even giving her life a happy yellow brick road ending). Unlike the bulk of those films,“ Maria” seems far more traditional and less adventurous. That’s curious since Steven Knight’s screenplay uses the drugged-out visions in the last week of Callas’ tragic life as his opportunity to open up the story, summoning imaginary characters such as a journalist named Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee, a good actor wasted here) to egg her on.
The scenario also leads Callas to re-create in her foggy mind rehearsals in a (mostly) empty theater, giving the film the opportunity to flash back to some of her grand performances, presented well here. Jolie is a very good actor, and she earned a Golden Globe best actress nomination for her performance, but too many times Larraín’s camera stays focused for far too long on her posing face, resulting in the feeling that film is stuck on the surface and never gets under the skin.
To make the film, well, sing, Jolie’s own singing got blended in with actual recordings of Callas’ amazing voice, and it benefits Jolie’s performance. But even with all the sumptuous visuals (cinematographer Edward Lachman’s work is to die for), elaborate costumes and lush production elements, the film itself feels rather passionless, and that’s a problem given that it’s about a commanding opera star who led a passion-filled life.
Larraín and Jolie fare best when the director uses black-and-white (as he did in his hugely underrated “El Conde”) for flashbacks of exchanges between Callas and Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) and one, briefly, with JFK (Caspar Phillipson). More time gets devoted to Callas and her relationship with her butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) and housemaid (Alba Rohrwacher) in her Paris apartment. Those scenes are indeed entertaining, particularly when Maria insists that a piano get moved again and again. But “Maria” never quite reaches the high note the singer deserves.
‘MARIA’
2 stars out of 4
Rating: R (language, sex, brief appearance of a dead body)
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher
Director: Pablo Larrain
Running time: 2 hours, 4 minutes
When & where: Releases Dec. 11 on Netflix.