Maria

Pablo Larraín releases his third stately and eloquent biopic and may have topped his previous two efforts with Maria.

This, the story of opera singer Maria Callas, follows his depictions of Jackie Kennedy (Jackie) and Diana Spencer (Spencer) and lovingly fits in almost as a semi-sequel to the former.

This is an equally brave, elegant and beautiful film as those other two and uses a slightly altered biopic format to tell a more filmic and visually arresting story.

As the final week of her life plays out, we follow Maria around Paris conducting a seemingly fictional filmed interview and reminiscing on her life from performing for Nazi soldiers to her opera career.

The largely black-and-white flashbacks are intermingled with ‘home video’ style footage and are truly stunning, Larraín's use of cinematography masterful and visually jaw-dropping in parts.

A sure-to-be-awards-laden performance from Angelina Jolie looms large over the entire film. Whilst the supporting cast are excellent too, any scene without Maria lacks something and are the only moments where the momentum sags.

Fortunately, there aren’t too many of these and Jolie is staggering in a multi-faceted portrayal.

She clearly sees a few parallels with her own time out of the spotlight and brings pathos, heart, emotion and everything inbetween to the performance.

It makes a brilliant pseudo-trilogy with the other two and, whilst all three films are fantastic, this probably edges it.

An awards-worthy, visually sumptuous film.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️