Chilean film director Pablo Larraín has had an illustrious career spanning nearly two decades. While films like Emma and El Conde have certainly been the subject of wide discussion, it is in fact his portraits of two tragic historical women, Jackie and Spencer, that have propelled Larraín onto the international stage. With the Netflix original Maria (2024), he adds a third. Browse this film on Afdah Movies.

A jarring visit to the late mind-space of Maria Callas, "the world's greatest soprano." The film does a good job of capturing the interiority that Angelina Jolie brings to the character, but it gets a little lost in the details as it tries to capture the full picture of a complex woman.

Paris. The 1970s. American-born Greek soprano and opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) is a shadow of her former self, skinny, unsure if she can still sing, constantly on medication and confused by her days as she hovers between reality and fantasy; the confusion of the present and the ups and downs of the past.

There is one main reason to meet Maria: Jolie. With her slim figure and searching eyes, Angelina Jolie conveys the image of a woman lost in her own body. Even in this condition, Jolie never lets her charm and intelligence shine through. That is the tragedy: she is a bright light dimmed by the difficult path she has taken in life. Regret, trauma, and the harsh reality that she is no longer the woman she once was make Callas's final years a slow funeral march, and keep Jolie's heart heavy with emotion. Pablo Larraín uses several methods to portray Maria Callas' mental state, one of which is the narrative conceit of Maria's main hallucination, the film director Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in Callas's head. As she strolls alone through Paris, her inner loneliness transforms into a fascinating documentary, with more dreamy footage courtesy of cinematographer Edward Lachman. Mandrax and Maria's glamorous interviews at times take on the shape of a walking opera, as adoring fans gather around them.