Maria (2024)

We think Angelina Jolie is good in the title role of this biopic about the last years of renowned opera singer Maria Callas. The actors familiar to me in the supporting cast are Kodi Smit-McPhee as her interviewer Mandrax and Valeria Golino as her sister Yakinthi.

Pablo Larraín directs from the script by Steven Knight. This is the third and final movie in Larraín's "Ladies with Heels" trilogy, after Jackie and Spencer, which are about, if you didn't know, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and Diana, Princess of Wales, respectively. Jolie did not get an Oscar nomination for this role, although Natalie Portman did for Jackie and Kristen Stewart did for Spencer.

The soundtrack is comprised of various opera recordings, mostly performed by Callas herself, and the closing credits has a song by Brian Eno. Jolie sings for the older, failing Callas, and the first two items in this list of the movie's trivia tell us a bit about how that came to be. Danish actor Caspar Phillipson plays JFK in this movie, as he did in Jackie and Blonde (the Marilyn Monroe biopic--not directed by Larraín).

Although the movie's pace is on the slow side, I, for one, was captivated by the magnificent cinematography by Edward Lachman and the opulent wardrobe by Massimo Cantini Parrini. Details on their work are in this article.

If you would like to watch this movie, I recommend waiting to read this spoiler-laden article until afterwards.

One of the running lists on my blog is of tropes that I call rules. Here's the complete list. Maria observes Rule #2 by showing the Eiffel Tower in so many scenes of Paris.

Jolie was last blogged for Salt, Smit-McPhee for The Power of the Dog, Golino for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Larraín and Knight for Spencer, Lachman for Wonderstruck, and Parrini for Cyrano.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are a bit pitchy, averaging 75 and 76%. Jack and I watched it on Netflix on March 23.

Spencer (2021)

This self-described "fable from a true tragedy" about the Princess of Wales is heartbreaking and beautiful. Kristen Stewart is getting Oscar buzz as the late Diana and it's well deserved, as we watch her struggle mightily over a few days in 1991 with anxiety, repression, and bulimia in her castle prison. The movie makes no pretense of being exactly truthful in its events or chronology. 

Apparently Stewart spent a lot of time perfecting her English accent, with help from the same dialect coach used by Emmy winner Emma Corrin, who played Diana in The Crown series.

Among the many in the supporting cast, Sally Hawkins' Maggie stands out. Maggie was inspired by a real palace employee who prefers to remain anonymous.

Pablo Larraín directs from a script by Steven Knight and the tension is palpable. Larraín, for one, is no stranger to fictionalized accounts of real people, as in Neruda and Jackie, the latter of which earned Natalie Portman her third Oscar nomination (she won one of them, for Black Swan). But I digress.

Jonny Greenwood's score (occasionally described in the captions as "discordant") can be streamed on Apple Music and elsewhere. Not at all discordant are the magnificent costumes by Jacqueline Durran, many of which recreate actual ensembles worn by Diana, and the spectacular photography by Claire Mathon, shot in Germany (Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin, Brandenberg) and Norfolk, England.

Stewart was last blogged for JT LeRoy, Hawkins for The Shape of Water, Larraín for Neruda, Knight for Allied, Greenwood for You Were Never Really Here, Durran for Little Women (she won the Oscar for it), and Mathon for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (she won the César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscars, for that).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is only semi-royal at 83%, while its audiences are much more common with a scant 52. Jack and I enjoyed it when we rented it on iTunes on December 5.