Maria Review: This Biopic Doesn't Quite Sing
Streaming Movie Review - Biopic - Netflix
I grew up in a musical family. All of us sang, but my middle sister was talented beyond any of us in that department, and her specialty was opera. So Maria Callas was familiar to us. All of that history increased my interest in Maria from director Pablo Larraín, now streaming on Netflix.
The film follows Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) during the final days of her life. Because she was on a number of medications, most notably Quaaludes, under the brand name Mandrax, the film uses a unique technique of personifying Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as an interviewer, walking her through significant moments in her life.
Those flashbacks are paired with her dealings with her housemaid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) and driver and servant Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino). Bruna tries to keep Maria calm and happy by telling her how brilliant her singing remains despite noticeable slippage. Ferruccio helps by constantly moving Maria’s piano despite his back problems and bringing in Doctor Fontainebleau (Vincent Macaigne) to manage her drug use.
There are moments of brilliance in this film. Treating Maria’s hallucinations as an interview was a unique way to include the breadth of her life and career. Additionally, Larraín does an excellent job echoing the era of Callas’s career through the filming techniques present throughout. As the decades pass, we see changes in the quality and color of the film, which adds to the dream-like quality of the movie.
The issue is that Maria never fully embraces some of the more unique aspects of the initial conceit, and it ends up being a fairly standard biopic about a truly fascinating and enigmatic woman. It does capture much of the mystery around her, but sometimes the hallucination aspect of it muddied the waters a bit, making it hard to separate fact from fiction, but that felt more unintentional than on purpose.
Angelina Jolie gives an impressive performance in this film. She spent the better part of a year learning the proper posture, breathing, and singing techniques of an operatic singer, and while most of the music is primarily Callas’s voice, Larraín says that there are times when Jolie’s is more prominent. The way that she carries herself throughout the film is spectacular and impressive to watch.
As mentioned, the music in this is stunning. There are numerous recordings of Callas’s work through the years, and many of the most famous are highlighted throughout the film. One of the most striking pieces is the “Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.” The piece is filmed in the rain, and the music combined with that visual and amplified by Jolie’s performance is transcendent.
Maria Callas had a complicated and brief life, passing away at only 53. Her fame, her talent, her significant weight loss, her connection to Aristotle Onassis - all of these create a sense of mystery around her. Maria attempts to look at all of these and is only somewhat successful in that endeavor. Perhaps La Callas is best enjoyed in her recordings rather than in some kind of understanding.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on December 7, 2024.
Thx for the great review. Honestly, the line you mentioned about a talented and exceptional woman and a standard biopic tracks. I guess I was hoping for more that a story about a woman advancing in her career on the decline and drug addiction. Maybe I’ve been too wrapped up in Judy Garland and The Wizard of Oz but I want to scratch under the surface a little more. The personification of Mandrax seems like an interesting artistic choice and one that could work. The people caring for Callas feels creepy and exploitative