Angelina Jolie shines as a misunderstood Maria Callas

The Hollywood actor plays melancholic diva Maria Callas to perfection in this swansong biopic.

Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in the film Maria.

Maria (M)
124 minutes
In cinemas
Three stars

“My life’s opera. There is no reason in opera.” So says New York-born Greek opera singer Maria Callas (an impressive Angelina Jolie) in the swan song biopic Maria.

It’s 1977 and the 53-year-old soprano is in her Paris apartment, accompanied by two poodles and her butler Ferruccio (Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino) and housekeeper Bruna (Italian actor Alba Rohrwacher).

She’s addicted to the sedative mandrax, which causes hallucinations. One of the apparitions is a young filmmaker named Mandrax (Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is interviewing her.

She is near the end of her days and is reflecting on her past. In doing so she illustrates her “no reason” observation, especially through her relationship with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis (Turkish actor Haluk Bilginer).

“I took liberties all my life and the world took liberties with me,’’ she says when the butler asks what drugs she has taken. Soon after she tells the imagined filmmaker, “Slowly, slowly I am looking back at my life. Seeing the truth”.

The scenes with Onassis, shot in black and white, are a highlight. When he and Callas meet, each is married. This, for a man as rich as Onassis, is an irrelevance. When she suggests there’s a point where self-control becomes a form of insanity, he replies, “I crossed that border a long time ago”.

The dialogue between them is indicative of the sharpness of the script, written by British writer and director Steven Knight, creator of the 2013-2022 television series Peaky Blinders.

The director, Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain, is interested in famous women who find themselves misunderstood. His previous films include Jackie (2016) about Jacqueline Kennedy (who became Onassis’s wife), and Spencer (2021), about Lady Di.

The backstory involving Onassis includes a scene where Callas meets John F. Kennedy Jr (Caspar Phillipson) soon after Marilyn Monroe (Sue Ellen Kennedy) sings him happy birthday.

Callas, who has not performed for almost five years, is a melancholic diva. She declares that “music is born of suffering and distress … happiness never produced a beautiful melody”. That, perhaps, is one of the burdens of singing opera.

Jolie’s performance is a strength of the film.

She is attempting to refind her voice. Jolie does a little singing, when Callas is at this late point, but she lip synchs the songs in the flash backs that show “la Divina” at her height. What Jolie, who won an Oscar for the 1999 thriller Girl, Interrupted, does is show us the complicated woman behind the astonishing voice.

Her performance – and the script and opulent camerawork (American cinematographer Edward Lachman) – are the strengths of this film. “I am saying my thoughts out loud,’’ Callas tells Onassis at one point. “It’s a new thing. My thoughts out loud.”