Maria review – a ten­der eulo­gy for a remark­able talent

In a 1983 tele­vised trib­ute to Maria Callas, Leonard Bern­stein referred to the sopra­no as ​“the bible of opera”, such was her impact upon the art form. Before her untime­ly death in 1977 at the age of 53, Callas had become one of the most revered and reviled fig­ures in music, known for her dis­tinc­tive voice and tem­pera­men­tal per­son­al­i­ty. In a 1955 news­reel of Callas rehears­ing for a pro­duc­tion of Bellini’s Nor­ma, the nar­ra­tion cut­ting­ly states ​“If you want to hear Callas, don’t get all dressed up. Just go to a rehearsal; she usu­al­ly stays to the end of those.” But for all her flaws and per­ceived dra­mat­ics, there’s a rea­son Callas earned the nick­name ​‘La Div­ina’ in life; her tal­ent was transcendental.

It is with Callas that Pablo Lar­raín, a long-time devo­tee of ​“dif­fi­cult women”, con­cludes his tril­o­gy of biopics that began with Jack­ie and con­tin­ued with Spencer. His deci­sion to reunite with Steven Knight (one of the most incon­sis­tent screen­writ­ers work­ing today, capa­ble of deliv­er­ing the high­est highs and low­est lows) is omi­nous, giv­en his dire work on Spencer. Remark­ably, where that film fell short, Maria soars, cap­tur­ing Callas’ flighty nature and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty with sen­si­tiv­i­ty and grace.

Set in the final week of Callas’ life, she divides her time between rehearsals for a call time that will nev­er come, argu­ments with her devot­ed but frus­trat­ed staff Bruna (Alba Rohrwach­er) and Fer­ruc­cio (Pier­francesco Favi­no), and imag­ined excur­sions around Paris with steely-eyed, sharply dressed British reporter Man­drax (Kodi Smit-McPhee), named for the seda­tives she takes despite Ferruccio’s strong oppo­si­tion. Then there are flash­backs to for­mer lives, shot in dra­mat­ic black and white, as Maria fell in love with ship­ping tycoon Aris­to­tle Onas­sis (Haluk Bil­gin­er) only to watch him mar­ry Jack­ie Kennedy (Cas­par Phillip­son, play­ing JFK for a third time after Jack­ie and Blonde, appears in a terse but amus­ing din­ner scene that shows some of Callas’ exact­ing wit and dis­in­ter­est in her Amer­i­can roots).

Both Lar­raín and Knight are avowed opera lovers, and this pas­sion shows in Maria; its fram­ing feels rem­i­nis­cent of the great tragedies where a woman so often dies of a bro­ken heart. Pulling from Callas’ incred­i­ble reper­toire there are ref­er­ences to some of the roles she embod­ied so beau­ti­ful­ly (Car­men; Cio-Cio-San; Tosca; Vio­let­ta) but the film’s great­est respect in this regard is its use of music. Jolie trained to sing opera for the role, and accord­ing to Lar­raín does sing a lot of the pieces used through­out, though some of Callas’ record­ings were mixed with hers to cre­ate some­thing that is not quite either woman, and the scenes appear dubbed rather than sung on-set. Per­haps opera devo­tees will have quib­bles, but to the untrained ear, she pos­sess­es the grav­i­tas and skill that one would expect in por­tray­ing the most famous sopra­no who ever lived.

In Jack­ie Kennedy, Natal­ie Port­man found the role of a life­time, and in Maria Callas so too does Angeli­na Jolie. It’s quite some­thing to watch a woman as instant­ly recog­nis­able as Jolie be so bewitch­ing while play­ing some­one else incred­i­bly famous (always a chal­lenge in biopics where footage of the sub­ject exists) and with­out the lay­ers of pros­thet­ics that actors nor­mal­ly rely on to ​“trans­form”. Yet Jolie achieves such with a refined purr of a Euro­pean accent and some­thing equal­ly feline in her gait. She is dain­ty and grace­ful, her mag­net­ic gaze mag­ni­fied behind styl­ish glass­es, seem­ing to float through the grand rooms of her apart­ment, but also dif­fi­cult and decep­tive – a shrewd oper­a­tor, an unabashed shark.

It is also dif­fi­cult not to find some shades of Jolie her­self in the ten­der­ness and inter­nal pain of Callas. Jolie doesn’t mere­ly imper­son­ate Callas, she embod­ies her – there is a radi­ance about her per­for­mance, deter­mined to afford the sub­ject the dig­ni­ty and fond­ness that biopics often trade in favour of flashi­ness and hagiog­ra­phy. And while Knight, Lar­raín and Jolie clear­ly have much affec­tion for Callas, this is not mere wor­ship. Her tem­per and capri­cious­ness are acknowl­edged, but so too is the suf­fer­ing Callas endured, both as a girl and a woman. Callas her­self would have hat­ed to be thought of as anoth­er trag­ic hero­ine, so the film does not doom her to becom­ing anoth­er exquis­ite oper­at­ic corpse.

The gen­tle­ness of Rohrwach­er and the pater­nal stern­ness of Favi­no bal­ance Jolie; while the staff in Spencer were aus­tere and cru­el to the trag­ic hero­ine, here the hired help is the clos­est thing Callas has to fam­i­ly. Per­haps that sounds trag­ic, but the domes­tic­i­ty and love between Maria, Bruna and Fer­ruc­cio soft­ens her diva per­sona, while the for­mal­i­ty between Callas and Man­drax allow a fan­tas­ti­cal ele­ment (as both Lar­raín and Knight are fond of) that feels more cohe­sive than the Anne Boleyn motif of Spencer.

Maria is a phys­i­cal­ly beau­ti­ful film, yes, with gor­geous cin­e­matog­ra­phy by the reli­ably great Edward Lach­man and exquis­ite cos­tumes by Mas­si­mo Can­ti­ni Par­ri­ni, but its plea­sures are not mere­ly sur­face. There’s an ethe­re­al qual­i­ty to Jolie’s per­for­mance that match­es Callas’ leg­endary per­sona, and despite the deep sense of melan­choly that per­vades the film like a ghost­ly veil, this is still a love sto­ry – and one where the hero­ine lives forever.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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