Yesterday, Netflix picked up Pablo Larrain’s “Maria,” and judging by the reviews that just dropped out of Venice, it looks like they will have to fully concentrate their awards campaigning on Angelina Jolie’s lead performance and not the film itself.
“Maria” is getting passable reviews, it has a 64 on Metacritic (based on 16 critics), and most of the writeups agree that Jolie is very good as opera singer Maria Callas. The black and white flashbacks seem to be a point of contention in some of the reviews. Overall, we’re not looking at any kind of contender for the Golden Lion.
This is said to be the trilogy capper to Larrain’s “iconic females” biopics. 2022’s “Spencer” was underwhelming, but as far as I’m concerned, Larrain struck cinematic gold with 2016’s “Jackie” which featured brilliant editing, sound, music and a fantastic lead performance from Natalie Portman.
Is “The Exorcist” truly the greatest horror film ever made, or has time crowned a new champion of fear? Maybe it’s “The Shining,” ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ “Psycho,” or something entirely unexpected that still keeps you up at night.