Angelina Jolie ‘spellbinding’ as opera star Callas

Angelina Jolie walked the red carpet in London on Friday as her film about opera singer Maria Callas received its UK premiere.

Maria is the third in a trilogy of films about high-profile, complex women from director Pablo Larraín, following his movies about Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana.

Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the film focuses on Callas’s final years, in the 1970s, when she was living in Paris.

With Jolie taking on acting roles relatively rarely in recent years, the film has provided something of a comeback narrative for her and could lead to an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Callas was a US-born Greek soprano, and one of opera’s most well-known opera singers. She died in 1977 aged 53.

In Maria, a blend of Jolie’s own voice and original recordings by Callas are used in the singing scenes.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter about Callas in August, Jolie said: “I’m sure there’s a lot that will be read into it of our overlaps as women, but the one that’s maybe not the most obvious is I’m not sure how comfortable we both are with being public.

“And there was a pressure behind the working that wasn’t just the joy of the work.”

Asked why she had been taking on fewer film roles in recent years, Jolie explained: “I needed to be home more with my kids.”

But, she continued, she felt ready to return because her children are now “a bit older, getting more independent… I’m less needed and so able to go away for different periods of time”.

The film has received mixed reviews, although critics have generally praised its central performance.

“Jolie is absolutely spellbinding as Maria Callas, imbuing her with grace and resolve,” said Sophia Ciminello of AwardsWatch. “She doesn’t disappear into the role, she transcends.”

Thanks to a “virtuoso lead performance from Jolie and exceptional technical elements across the board”, Next Best Picture’s Ema Sasic wrote, “Maria is a triumphant high note for Larraín to close his trilogy on”.

“It is Jolie’s ability to depict a woman owning everything she is that makes her performance truly sing,” said Entertainment Weekly’s Maureen Lee Lenker.

“It’s a remarkable portrait of a woman reckoning with herself, even as her body fails her.”

Time’s Stephanie Zacharek was less keen on her performance, however, saying Jolie “plays her subject as haughtily cool and deeply insecure, but captures none of her imperious charisma”.

“Larraín does his movie no favours by using footage of the real Maria Callas in the closing credits sequence… [giving audiences] a jolt of all the vitality Jolie and Larraín have failed to capture.”

Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson was also a little cooler on the movie, writing: “There is something arbitrary, unspecific about the film.

“With a few details removed, Maria could be about any grand diva, this blurry picture of a woman swanning through the final week of her life.”

Jolie’s previous film credits include Changeling, Maleficent, Salt, Mr & Mrs Smith, The Bone Collector and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Maria will be released in cinemas in the UK on 10 January.