What happens when a star dazzles in a lead role? Audiences might be blinded to the film's other achievements - but these are worth a closer look.

The diva in question is not Maria Callas, the famous and revered opera singer whose scandals were as dramatic as her performances. The diva I’m talking about is Angelina Jolie, who plays Callas under the direction of Pablo Larrain. Jolie’s performance is all over the place because the director and editor cut it that way.

Angelina Jolie recently opened up about the many similarities and differences she shares with the late Maria Callas, who she plays in ‘Maria.’

“Maria,” Pablo Larraín’s cinematic portrait of opera legend Maria Callas, arrives as the third of the director’s films centered on iconic women of the 20th century.

Imaginative but seemingly true to its subject, "Maria" is the latest exquisitely filmed portrait from the maker of "Jackie" and the Diana study "Spencer."

In Callas’ less perfect moments singing in the film, Larraín fuses archival recordings of Callas with Jolie’s own voice. Some mix of the two runs throughout “Maria.” “Early in the process,” Jolie says, “I discovered that you can’t fake-sing opera.”

Angelina Jolie's children are proud of how hard she worked to transform into opera singer Maria Callas for the biopic Maria. The Girl, Interrupted star, who hadn't appeared in a movie since 2021's Eternals,