Chilean director Pablo Larraín rounds off his trilogy of tragic women with his Maria Callas biopic, starring Angelina Jolie. Divine diva or does it miss the high notes? The last time we saw Angelina Jolie on the big screen was in 2021 with Marvel’s panned but not-as-bad-as-you-remember-it . She’s back this year with the most challenging role of her career: playing the most renowned and influential opera singer of the 20th century – Maria Callas.
Directed by Chilean director Pablo Larraín - who caps off the final part of his tragic women trilogy, which began with the Venice premiere of (2016), starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Onassis, and (2021), the Princess Diana biopic starring Kristen Stewart, which also debuted on the Lido - sees Jolie take on the daunting role of “La Divina”, in a reimagining of her final days in 1970s Paris. The pill-popping diva hasn’t sung onstage in more than four years and spends most of her time locked up in her lavish apartment, with her housekeeper Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) cooking her omelettes and her butler Feruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) monitoring her daily drug intake. And that’s when she’s not prepping to be interviewed by a journalist (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who we quickly realise is a drug-induced hallucination.
The clue is in his name: Mandrax, which is Callas’ downer of choice. It might not be the only thing that’s fake though..
. Who knows who or what is a figment of her imagination? After all, Maria’s doctor tell.
