Movie Review: 'Maria' and the Pablo Larrain Cinematic Biopic Extended Universe

Maria

Directed by Pablo Larrain

Written by Steven Knight

Starring Angelina Jolie

Released November 27th, 2024

Published December 4th, 2025

In the early 2000s I coined a flippant, dismissive new term for typically young adult movies that featured young, attractive people dying of the disease of being too pretty and full of promise. I dubbed these movies ‘Dead Ingenue Movies.’ The term was mostly inspired by Mandy Moore’s soporific starring vehicle A Walk to Remember, from 2002. But there were other, similar movies from the early 2000s that mined the same dimwitted tropes to craft a tear jerking narrative about young women whose value to the world was to reform a ne'er do well male protagonist before dying from being too attractive and young.

In the last few years however, director Pablo Larrain has single handedly transformed the dead ingenue sub-gene by combining the trope-heavy, too-perfect-to-live teen weeper with a splashy, toney biopic of a famous dead ingenue. In 2016 Larrain trained his eye on Jackie Kennedy to capture the vulnerable side of the first lady in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. Then, in 2021, Larrain turned his camera’s eye to, perhaps, the most famous dead ingenue of all, Princess Diana, in Spencer.

Both of these films feature moments of grace and beauty. Larrain is a remarkably talented director with an exceptional eye. His dream-like approach to imagining the inner turmoil of Jackie Kennedy and Prince Di made both films memorable, if not great. I do believe that Spencer is a far more successful movie than Jackie, I even put it on my end of 2021 Best of list, but a big part of that was Kristen Stewart’s remarkably deft and thoughtful performance. Jackie was more meandering and Natalie Portman’s performance, though not bad, rendered Jackie Kennedy like a frail bird rather than a fully fleshed out human being.

For his latest dead ingenue movie, and yes, I am aware, I am not using the term Ingenue correctly in applying it to people like Jackie Kennedy or Princess Di, I already admitted that it was a flippant term, Larrain examines the final days of famed Opera singer Maria Callas. Like Jackie and Spencer, Maria renders its subject as a fragile, wilting flower caught in a maelstrom of fame, unwanted attention, and desperate loneliness. At this point I could write a Pablo Larrain movie with relatively little strain.

It’s Paris, 1977, and 53 year old fading star Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) is whiling away her final days having furniture rearranged and slowly slipping into madness. She harbors a desire to return to the stage and attempt to recapture the voice that made her a legend. Sadly, the effort to project her voice as she once so powerfully had, is exactly what might kill her. Still, the desire is there and the motivation comes from an inquisitive interviewer, Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee), whose persistent efforts to get an interview with Callas have been repeatedly foiled by Maria’s loyal butler, Ferrucio (Pierfrancesco Favino).

Each day in Callas’s Paris apartment begins with her considering doing the interview and her being discouraged from it. The only reason the interview eventually happens is because Mandrax doesn’t really exist. He’s a figment of Maria's imagination, discouraged by Feruccio, but persisting in Maria’s deteriorating mind. Through the device of Mandrax, Maria begins to tell her story to us. We take a tour through her young life in Greece where she and her sister were subjected to the abuses of the invading Nazis in World War 2, through Maria’s rapid rise to fame in the world of Opera and her controversial love life with Aristotle Onassis, a man she ended up sharing with none other than Jackie Kennedy. It’s the Pablo Larrain Extended Cinematic Universe at work.

Maria is a gorgeous looking movie. Edward Lachman’s cinematography is top notch, each scene is beautiful to look at. Similarly, Angelina Jolie delivers a near flawless performance as she captures the star magnetism of Maria Callas and the magnitude of her powerhouse voice. Jolie does sing in the movie and did learn to sing opera for the role but her work is mainly used during the time when Maria Callas’ voice has failed her, lost its strength, and power to project. For the flashbacks to Callas’ prime, actual recordings of Callas were used.

There are many good things about the movie Maria but Pablo Larrain’s approach to this style of biopic is going stale. Maria feels like a lesser version of both Jackie and Spencer. Like those two films, Larrain worships his version of these historic women but this hero worship fails to capture the real human being onto which Larrain projects his worship. In Spencer, Kristen Stewart is able to transcend Larrain’s approach via a well textured performance. In Maria, sadly, Angelina Jolie is perfectly happy to bask in Larrain’s adoration, leaving the real Maria Callas to whither in the shadow of Larrain’s worship of her as a tragic hero.

Larrain appears to want to call out society and popular culture and the media for placing too much strain on these wilting flowers of women who had no desire for such attention. There may or may not be some truth captured in Larrain’s retelling of these famous lives but the truth is often glossed over in favor of Larrain’s fanciful take on the celebrity culture that drives women like Maria Callas or Princess Di to an early grave or, like Jackie Kennedy, a life of gilded suffering. It’s a reductive approach to a biopic, even as I can sense that the approach is born of good intentions and a remarkable amount of talent.

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