Butler's Cinema Scene

Angelina Jolie

“MARIA” My rating: B(Netflix)

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

One of the great satisfactions of moviegoing is seeing a familiar face become so immersed in a role that you forget who you’re watching.

It happens to Angelina Jolie in “Maria,” a sorta-biography of opera singer  Maria Callas. It feels like the high point of her acting career.

Directed by Pablo Larrain, “Maria” follows the retired 53-year-old diva in the week before her death in September of 1977.

In her Baroque Paris apartment Maria sleeps late and is tended to by her butler Ferrucio (Pierfrancesco Favino) and housekeeper Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher).  These two domestics are devoted to their mistress, but harbor few illusions.

Maria is imperious and demanding — although she assumes an ironic attitude meant to defuse what otherwise might come off as pure bitchiness. 

She has Ferrucio move a huge grand piano around the apartment for no other reason than to satisfy her whims.  When she attempts an aria — she hasn’t given a public performance in several years — she expects Bruna to swoon appropriately, even though it’s pretty clear Maria’s voice is way past its expiration date. 

(The singing in the film blends original Callas performances with Jolie’s vocal efforts.  The results are convincing.)

She’s also heavily into self-medication. Ferrucio and Bruna periodically make a sweep of her bedroom looking for hidden pills.

When she does go out, Maria is desperate for attention (she tells a waiter she only comes to restaurants to be adored) but dismissive  when people fawn over her. A hard person to satisfy.

To the extent that screenwriter Steven Knight has given us a narrative, it centers on Maria doing a series of on-camera interviews with a documentary maker (Kodi Smit-McPhee).  Some take place in her apartment, others on the streets and in the parks of Paris.

Thing is, we soon realize that the filmmaker is a figment of Maria’s imagination. But he gives her a chance to talk about her life, at which point the film reverts to black-and-white flashbacks.

Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, Haluk Bilginer as Aristotle Onasis

Thus we witness her courtship by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who somehow manages to turn his physical ugliness into a charming asset.  (Being filthy rich probably helps, too.) 

We see young Maria (Angelina Papadopoulou) during the occupation of Greece being pimped out by her mother to German officers. (Was actual sex involved? Don’t know.)

She has a chilly encounter with President John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson), whose widow would of course go on to marry Calla’s paramour Onassis. (Jeez, famous people are incestuous.)

And we get snippets of her musical triumphs on stages throughout the world, often presented in grainy 8 mm footage.

The result is less a coherent story than a series of impressions painting a rather sad portrait of self-absorption and fading talent.

Now here’s the thing:  I have no idea what Maria Callas was like as an individual.  A montage of clips of the real Callas at the end of the movie suggests a woman far happier and charming than the one portrayed by Jolie.

But taken at face value, this is a great performance.  True to the real Maria? I don’t know.  But it works for me.

| Robert W. Butler