Maria First Reactions ā Critics Say Angelina Jolie Gives āCareer-Best Performanceā
Angelina Jolie graced the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of her latest film, Maria.
Directed by Pablo LarraĆn, Maria completes his trilogy of stories about iconic women, the previous two films being Jackie, which starred Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy, and Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana.
Maria follows Jolie as Maria Callas during her final days in 1970s Paris.
Following the film's premiere, there was an eight-minute standing ovation, with Jolie, LarraĆn, and more of the cast and crew in attendance.
Co-Editor-in-Chief at Variety, Ramin Setoodeh, shared a clip of Jolie overcome with emotion.
Angelina Jolie weeps through an 8-minute #Venezia81 standing ovation for āMaria,ā which will be a major Oscars contender. pic.twitter.com/PMiu4RWJ09
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) August 29, 2024
Praise for Jolie flooded social media, with Ema Sasic of Next Best Picture saying "Jolie is a marvel".
Luke Hearfield says that Jolie "has never been better" and this is "the performance of her career (thus far)."
MARIA is a deeply moving story about a song bird reclaiming her voice. Angelina Jolie is a marvel and tugs at the heartstrings as the famed opera singer Maria Callas. Supporting actors shine too. Beautiful cinematography, production design, costumes, makeup & hairstyling pic.twitter.com/T7ZjFkC0Yu
— Ema Sasic @ Venice (@ema_sasic) August 29, 2024
Like Maria Callas herself, Angelina Jolie deserves all the adulation, adoration and flowers for her performance as the titular opera singer in Pablo LarraƬnās Maria. She quite simply has never been better. Easily the performance of her career (thus far). The movie itself wonāt beā¦ pic.twitter.com/4bD8ZyMbKe
— Luke Hearfield @ Venice ???????? (@LukeHearfield) August 29, 2024
Film critic, Guy Lodge, was less of a fan. Saying that he was "disappointed" by the film, believing "LarraĆnās humour and subversive streak are better suited to blanker, less brilliant canvases."
Disappointed by MARIA, which is stiffly in thrall to its subject in a way JACKIE and SPENCER werenāt: LarraĆnās humour and subversive streak are better suited to blanker, less brilliant canvases. Ed Lachman is having a field day; everyone else is determined *not* to be operatic.
— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) August 29, 2024
Alex Billington of First Showing felt similarly, saying he "raved and raved" about Kristen Stewart and Natalie Portman in Spencer and Jackie, but LarraĆn's latest "doesn't amount to much" and that "Angelina Jolie is fine."
For comparison - I think both Kristen Stewart and Natalie Portman give much better, much more realistic performances in Pablo Larrain's other two tormented woman biopics. I raved and raved about both of them, but I was not that impressed by Jolie this time around. She felt faux. https://t.co/UiFay43XDN
— Alex B. (@firstshowing) August 29, 2024
Scott Menzel chimed in to say that the film is "similar in style and tone" to LarraĆn's prior work and that he "once again weaves a beautiful yet tragic portrait of a complex female protagonist".
He has similar praise for Jolie as Sasic and Hearfield, saying, this is "a career-best performance from Angelina Jolie".
Similar in style and tone to Jackie and Spencer, Pablo LarraĆn once again weaves a beautiful yet tragic portrait of a complex female protagonist with Maria. Featuring a career-best performance from Angelina Jolie, Maria is a film that you can expect to hear a lot about during theā¦ pic.twitter.com/Kf6a1YLk3r
— Scott Menzel (@ScottDMenzel) August 29, 2024
Maria has been picked up by Netflix but is yet to have an official release date.
Maria Review Roundup
The Hollywood Reporter: The naked emotionality and piercing tragedy of the immortal operatic heroines is a poignant fit for Callas' end-of-life story and a useful counterpoint to her studied poise and aloofness in this interpretation.
indieWire: Jolie's broadly theatrical but delicately unraveling performance feels immersive and self-revealing in equal measure, as if Maria Callas is a conduit for her to reclaim her own identity as an artist and a human being.
Little White Lies: There's an ethereal quality to Jolie's performance that matches Callas' legendary persona, and despite the deep sense of melancholy that pervades the film like a ghostly veil, this is still a love story ā and one where the heroine lives forever.
Vanity Fair: 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.
BBC.com: Knight has written countless lines of spikily witty, quotable dialogue, and it's never a chore to watch a beautiful actor wearing beautiful outfits in beautiful Paris locations.
