Dir: Pablo Larrain | Cast: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Valeria Golino, Haluk Bilginer, Stephen Ashfield, Valeria Golino, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Vincent Macaigne, Lydia Koniordou, Angelina Papadopoulou | 2 hours 3 minutes
Pablo Larrrain has captured the essence of female icons Princess Diana and Jacky Onassis. Now her rival Maria Callas comes under the spotlight in this wistful portrait of lost love and longing. Maria is about a diva not at the height of her powers but at her swansong, four years after her final performance, she misses music and fills the aching gap with medication while planning to sing again, against the advice of herr doctor (Vincent Macaigne). Like a swan gliding through water Maria is a graceful elegant drama full of swooning arias and tearful reflections on what was, and could have been played with supreme finesse by Angelina Jolie with just a hint of a Greek accent.
With his vintage lens Ed Lachmann evokes the soft mauve tinged lustre of this twilight era for the Greek goddess of opera who inhabits a palatial Paris apartment in 1977. The mournful tragedy tells of failed marriage, miscarriage and doomed romance. But there’s an autumnal warmth emanating from Maria’s glacial persona that makes her appealing. One gets the impression she would be amusing company with her acerbic grasp of reality and witty one-liners. She garners respect with her high standards, professionality and fear of losing dignity. We feel for her as a woman who has risen to the top of her and now only sees an emotional abyss with only her pet poodles, her housekeeper and butler for company. Alba Ruhrwacher and Pierfrranceso Favino are perfectly cast as the adoring dedicated domestic duo, tirelessly moving Maria’s piano around to suit her whims, and confiscating her carefully hidden tablets squirrelled away in pockets and handbags.
The days pass languorously with Maria giving interviews to a French journalist Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and practicing her ‘return to form’ with a respectful pianist (Stephen Ashfield). There are magnificent musical forays with Maria in her full splendour. Black and white flashbacks reflect on her unhappy childhood with a grasping mother (Lydia Koniordou) and her brief love affair with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who arrogantly ousted her husband. Onassis seems to have been her soulmate, although they never married, that role went to Jackie.
This is a production enhanced by its costumes and set designs from Massimo Cantini Parrini and Guy Hendrix Dyas respectively. With her mannequin figure Jolie showcases a selection of exquisite gowns and Seventies fashions as she saunters slowly through the French capital . In a soigne corner cafe she sips espresso on the terrace in full view of le tout Paris: “I come to restaurants to be adored” she informs the waiter. @MeredithTaylor
ON RELEASE FROM 10 January 2025