Angelina Jolie’s been pretty quiet on the acting front for the past few years, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t stayed busy. Jolie was awarded a Tony for her work as a producer on The Outsiders, and she’s apparently been going to great lengths for her role in the upcoming 2024 movie Maria. The effort seems to have paid off, too, as the actress is drawing rave reviews after the biographical drama premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The accolades she receives from playing opera singer Maria Callas remain to be seen, but she’s already won in my book with her red carpet look at the premiere.
Angelina Jolie Walks The Red Carpet In Ravishing Gold Gown
The upcoming music biopic is already getting Oscar buzz, and Angelina Jolie earned an 8-minute standing ovation at the premiere of Maria in Venice on August 29. But allow me to back up to a couple of hours prior to that, as the actress — who’s now one award away from EGOT status — was the epitome of Hollywood glam in her gold custom Tamara Ralph gown:
Off of her shoulders, the Maleficent star added a faux fur stole that only enhanced the gown, and I’m simply obsessed with the dark red lip that adds the perfect pop of color to the gorgeously monochromatic look. Lucky for her, the stellar outfit was accompanied by a stellar reaction, with Maria earning praise following its screening.
Critics Call Angelina Jolie’s Performance In Maria ‘Career-Defining’
To prepare for Maria, Angelina Jolie reportedly took seven months of opera singing lessons. She is, after all, portraying the Greek opera singer Maria Callas over the final week of her life in 1970s Paris. Owen Gleiberman of Variety calls Jolie’s performance “commanding,” while the movie overall may have been overly fatalistic. He writes:
Jolie’s performance is, in many ways, quite fine. From the moment she appears on screen, she seizes our attention, playing Maria as woman of wiles who is imperious, mysterious, fusing the life force of a genius diva with the downbeat emotional fire of a femme fatale. Jolie, for the first time in years, reminds you that she can be a deadly serious actor of commanding subtlety and power. Yet I wish that [director Pablo Larraín] and his screenwriter, Steven Knight, had found a greater vulnerability in the end-of-her-tether Maria.
Stephanie Bunbury of Deadline similarly praises the actress, noting that her training in opera singing pays off as we see the physical effects of Marie Callas’ craft in the performance. Bunbury continues:
Jolie is an almost magical match for the real diva: achingly thin but still beautiful, loftily patrician, capriciously kind or selfish, tip-toeing dangerously close to madness. The actor’s commitment to this creation is obvious at every turn. Knowing that Callas was only happy when on stage, she learned to sing for the role; the voice we hear is a blend of Callas and Jolie’s own. Even more importantly, we can see her chest rise and veins swell as she is consumed, body and soul, by the physical and emotional effort of singing.
Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent gives it 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a career-defining performance for Angelina Jolie. The critic compares Jolie’s embodiment of the singer to the stars of Pablo Lorrain’s past biographical dramas Jackie, starring Natalie Portman, and Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart. Loughrey writes:
Stewart and Portman certainly brought a part of themselves to their respective roles. But Jolie and Callas feel the most like twinned spirits. It’s a career-defining bit of synchronicity, bolstered by one of Jolie’s very best performances. Her work has always been about that immaculate sense of control over posture and tone – it turned manipulative when she played a sociopath in Girl, Interrupted, and unravelled with careful intent in 1998’s Gia, where she played the troubled supermodel Gia Carangi. Callas, in order to wrench forth the desperation of Lady Macbeth, Medea, or Madama Butterfly’s Cio-Cio San, was deliberate in every breath and syllable, too.
With such good reviews, it will be exciting to see if Maria earns Angelina Jolie another trip to the Academy Awards. I sure hope so, and only in part because I live for her red carpet moments.
