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Maria is a film by Pablo Larraín, who appears to have a soft spot for the psychodramas of legendary women (Spencer, Jackie) and has turned his attention to the prima donna Maria Callas. It stars Angelina Jolie, who trained as an opera singer for the role, God bless her, and while her voice is sometimes blended with Callas’s — isn’t that like adding ordinary plonk to a Château Lafite? — it still feels like karaoke, albeit karaoke of the most elevated kind. It’s not Mamma Mia!
It’s not your standard biopic either. This is Larrain, remember. Plus linear cradle-to-grave narratives are no longer in vogue — even though I wish they were. (I miss the moment when talent is first discovered, as well as, of course, those peeling posters noting the venues played.)
Callas died of a heart attack, aged fifty-three, in Paris in 1977, and this film focuses on the last week of her life. It opens, however, by taking us into the voice.
Here is Jolie’s Callas, staring into the camera, in black and white. Her face fills the screen — I was put in mind of Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” — as she sings “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s Otello. I suspect it’s Callas herself singing, and if Jolie is in there, fair play. Then it moves to her present day and her magnificently grand apartment, where she lives with her butler and housekeeper. She drives them crazy — she won’t see the doctor; she keeps asking that her piano be moved — but they are entirely devoted.
She is addicted to Mandrax, a hypnotic sedative, and hallucinates. She imagines a TV crew is making a film about her and she will often walk them round the city, which eventually becomes a bit of a bore, even though full orchestras do materialize.
Meanwhile, various monochrome memories float to the surface. These flashbacks cover past performances, her relationship with Aristotle Onassis and, briefly, her childhood. She was made to sing for money by her mother who also, it is suggested, pimped her out to the Nazi soldiers then occupying Athens. She hated her mother and I wish the film had spent more time on this, just as I wish the film had spent more time on any of the parts of her story.
With all the flitting about, it never coalesces as a portrait or gives a sense of Callas’s life in full. It would have been helpful, in fact, to have included the fabled moment her astonishing gift was first discovered — and if a few peeling posters had been thrown in, I wouldn’t have complained. If there is an arc, it’s in the story of her voice, which abandons her while she is yet to abandon it. Her accompanist is kind, but it’s obvious she will never recapture what she once had.
It’s hard to fathom what Larraín, and screenwriter Steven Knight, want to say about her. Or how we are meant to feel. Are we supposed to admire her stoicism in the face of her lost ability? Or pity her? Is she a tragic figure, or not? She remains enigmatic, opaque, as mysterious as she is imperious. The film never gets to the truth of her, or her art, which is why the singing doesn’t feel true, either.
As for Jolie, she is mesmerizing: but I couldn’t figure out if it’s because she’s mesmerizingly good or if it’s her mesmerizing beauty that’s doing the work. Either way, she’s never required to change gear.
I didn’t know much about Callas beforehand but have been down quite the rabbit hole since. My favorite Callas quote to date? “I have stepped on some people at times because I am at the top, it couldn’t be helped.” That’s the woman I wanted to see on screen.
