Jolie good: Maria reviewed

Maria is a film by Pablo Larrain, who appears to have a soft spot for the psychodramas of legendary women (Spencer, Jackie) and has turned his attention to the prima donna Maria Callas. It stars Angelina Jolie, who trained as an opera singer for the role, God bless her, and while her voice is sometimes blended with Callas’s – isn’t that like adding ordinary plonk to a Château Lafite? – it still feels like karaoke, albeit karaoke of the most elevated kind. It’s not Mamma Mia!.

It’s not your standard biopic either. This is Larrain, remember. Plus linear cradle-to-grave narratives are no longer in vogue – even though I wish they were. (I miss the moment when talent is first discovered, as well as, of course, those peeling posters noting the venues played.)

Callas died of a heart attack, aged 53, in Paris in 1977, and this film focuses on the last week of her life. It opens, however, by taking us into the voice.

Here is Jolie’s Callas, staring into the camera, in black and white. Her face fills the screen – I was put in mind of Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ – as she sings ‘Ave Maria’ from Verdi’s Otello. I suspect it’s Callas herself singing, and if Jolie is in there, fair play. Then it moves to her present day and her magnificently grand apartment, where she lives with her butler and housekeeper. She drives them potty – she won’t see the doctor; she keeps asking that her piano be moved – but they are entirely devoted.

She is addicted to Mandrax, a hypnotic sedative, and hallucinates. She imagines a TV crew is making a film about her and she will often walk them round the city, which eventually becomes a bit of a bore, even though full orchestras do materialise.