Maria (2024) Review

by Jack Hanley of HanleyOnFilm.com

MARIA (2024) Dir. Pablo Larraín

In a pleasantly surprising departure from his brilliant canon of "horror biopics"—featuring the reliable unraveling of powerful women in isolation (JACKIE, SPENCER)—Pablo Larraín leans heavily and unabashedly into fabulism for his subject's final days in MARIA.Do not look for a traditional obituary here—Larraín subverts the typical biopic narrative in a glorious celebration of self-delusion not seen since Swanson's iconic staircase descent. The film is an operatic experiment of sorts, employing a bold visual language and lovingly layering fragments of memory, archival footage, and unreliable specters around a career-defining performance by Angelina Jolie.

Ultimately, this is not about how we are remembered but rather how we wish to be.Through a stylized indulgence in the subjectivity of memory and the inextricable duality of art as artifice, MARIA eschews the bizarre and grotesque realities of death in favor of a more romantic and constructed portrayal of subjective agency. After all, how would we wish to direct our final days? Larraín is bold- and generous- enough to grant Maria this final dignity, even at the expense of popular critique.

It is a glorious catharsis to witness this sumptuous unraveling into immortality. Like any great Puccini moment, it eschews reality and rationality in favor of love, romanticism, and beauty—a fitting swan song for perhaps our greatest diva.

**** out of ***** stars.

Jack Hanley is a Boulder-based film scholar, podcaster, and critic. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival and Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and Flicker with Jack and Scott on YouTube. Find him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com