Vanity Fair’s first look at Pablo Larrain’s “Maria,” which is set to debut at Venice next weekend, attempts to set up Angelina Jolie as a potential Oscar contender. It reads like a publicist’s wet dream.
VF reports that Jolie trained for more than 6 months to play famous opera singer Maria Callas; “She worked on posture. She studied breathing. She developed an accent befitting a woman of both the world and another plane of fame. Then came to voice lessons,” Larrain says.
The article lauds Jolie’s work as “a defining, crowning, at times staggering performance […] Jolie’s approach is simultaneously heartbreaking, erratic, and imposing, displaying a cellular kind of understanding of Callas’s desperation to reclaim herself before it’s too late.”
Larrain’s film tells the story of Callas’ tumultuous, beautiful, and tragic life of the “world’s greatest opera singer.” It’s all relived and re-imagined during her final days in 1970s Paris. Steven Knight (“Spencer,” “Peaky Blinders,” “Eastern Promises”) wrote the screenplay.
“Maria” will cut back and forth between “striking color photography in the present and cool black-and-white flashbacks.” Todd Haynes’ go-to DP, the great Ed Lachman, who also shot Larraín’s “El Conde,” is lensing “Maria”.
Larraín describes “Maria” as the conclusion to his trilogy of biopics about iconic historical women, the previous two were “Spencer” and “Jackie” — both garnered Oscar nominations for its lead actresses (Kristen Stewart and Natalie Portman).
Alongside Jolie, the cast also includes Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. “Maria” currently has no U.S. distribution. It’s set to screen at Venice, Telluride and NYFF next month.
I’m seeing plenty of “worst of the year” mentions for “Ice Cream Man,” which doesn’t surprise me one bit. Roth has never been a critical darling and has only been more burdened by that with each passing film.