Angelina Jolie gives her most tremendous performance yet in a richly operatic, and cinematic, take on the life of Maria Callas.
In 1970s Paris, a documentary filmmaker seeks out the great soprano, now choked by age, illness, and public attention into retirement. Even so, she jumps at the chance to survey her titanic life – from Nazi-oppressed beginnings to unparalleled success to torrid affairs – and reclaim it with her own voice just before the end. Following similarly brilliant studies of treasured yet trapped 20th-century female icons – the director of Jackie and Spencer – Pablo Larraín and writer Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) deliver an even grander and more sumptuous work, without missing the brilliant, vulnerable individual at its centre. Jolie shines in the role, giving both an amazing star turn and an intelligent, rigorously trained take on the great performer.
