Angelina Jolie has earned her place in the Best Actress Oscar conversation here at the Venice Film Festival after his well-received performance in Maria.
The biopic of Pablo Larrain follows the life story of the world’s greatest opera singer, Maria Callasduring his last days in Paris in the 1970s.
Jolie told a news conference that she spent seven months preparing for the role: “Everyone here knows I was terribly nervous,” she said of learning to sing opera.I spent almost seven months training because when you work with Pablo you can’t do anything halfway..He demands, in the most wonderful way, that you really do the work and that you really learn and train.”
What the critics said about Angelina Jolie in Maria
In her review, Deadline’s Stephanie Bunbury said of the actress: “Jolie is an almost magical match for the true diva: painfully thin but still beautiful, haughtily patrician, capriciously kind or selfish, dangerously close to madness. The actress’s commitment to this creation is obvious at every step.
Bunbury, however, also noted that the film concluded on a relatively simple note compared to Larraín’s previous films, writing: “Maria tells a fascinating story, but it lacks that rough edge”.
The Financial Times also praised Jolie’s commitment to the role, describing her as a “Glamorous Callas”However, like Bunbury, the paper questions the biopic’s overall emotional ambition.
“Jolie captures the glamour, intellect and pathos of ‘La Callas,’ but remains emotionally distant,” “Still, it is fascinating to see opera’s most famous voice dubbed by Hollywood’s most famous lips, though the creators say Jolie’s voice is also present somewhere.”
The Telegraph, which gave the film four stars, said that Jolie “dazzles” as CallasThe paper added: “Jolie has plenty of room to dazzle, but less to surprise. But she dazzles, with a fine understanding of how far she can be over-the-top without the proceedings becoming too operatic for their own good.”
The Guardian, meanwhile, also gave the film four stars, calling it “magnificent”: “Jolie is a painting to behold in Pablo Larraín’s opulent drama, which lurches through 1970s Paris and draws us into the tragedy as deeply as Bellini or Puccini.”
However, Jolie’s performance didn’t charm everyone at the Lido. In an article titled “This Isn’t Angelina Jolie’s Big Comeback,” Vulture said that Callas’ role is Jolie’s most “ambitious in a long time”but “it doesn’t feel like a revival, but rather a project that has been built around the strategically reserved presence it has become.”
The Times of London also described Jolie’s Callas as “a pale imitation of an opera star”The English daily gave the film two stars and said it does not have “a single emotionally operatic moment.” “It is wilfully and wearily flat,” the paper wrote.
Time magazine praised Jolie’s performance and Larraín’s reverence for Callas, but said he was unable to transform those sentiments “into anything more than tasteful, well-mannered kitsch.”
Angelina Jolie: Oscar nominee for her performance in Maria?
Critics were more enthusiastic about Jolie’s performance than the film itself, which could prove challenging for the actress’s prospects ahead of the Academy Awards. However, that may not be the case as this week Netflix kept the broadcast rights to the film. Having the streaming platform behind it will surely give it more significant support for a possible Oscar nomination.
Maria It is Larraín’s third biographical film, starring a woman, which debuts in Venice after Jackie and SpencerBoth films received Oscar nominations for their lead actresses.
Jolie, meanwhile, was nominated for an Oscar twice throughout her career, winning the award for Best Supporting Actress in 2000 for Innocence interrupted and earning a Best Actress nomination in 2009 for The Exchange.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
