Maria First Reactions – Critics Say Angelina Jolie Gives “Career-Best Performance”

Angelina Jolie graced the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of her latest film, Maria .

Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria completes his trilogy of stories about iconic women, the previous two films being Jackie , which starred Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy, and Spencer , starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana.

Maria follows Jolie as Maria Callas during her final days in 1970s Paris.

Following the film's premiere, there was an eight-minute standing ovation, with Jolie, Larraín, and more of the cast and crew in attendance.

Co-Editor-in-Chief at Variety, Ramin Setoodeh, shared a clip of Jolie overcome with emotion.

Praise for Jolie flooded social media, with Ema Sasic of Next Best Picture saying "Jolie is a marvel".

Luke Hearfield says that Jolie "has never been better" and this is "the performance of her career (thus far)."

Film critic, Guy Lodge, was less of a fan. Saying that he was "disappointed" by the film, believing "Larraín’s humour and subversive streak are better suited to blanker, less brilliant canvases."

Alex Billington of First Showing felt similarly, saying he "raved and raved" about Kristen Stewart and Natalie Portman in Spencer and Jackie , but Larraín's latest "doesn't amount to much" and that "Angelina Jolie is fine."

Scott Menzel chimed in to say that the film is "similar in style and tone" to Larraín's prior work and that he "once again weaves a beautiful yet tragic portrait of a complex female protagonist".

He has similar praise for Jolie as Sasic and Hearfield, saying, this is "a career-best performance from Angelina Jolie".

Maria has been picked up by Netflix but is yet to have an official release date.

Maria Review Roundup

• The Hollywood Reporter: The naked emotionality and piercing tragedy of the immortal operatic heroines is a poignant fit for Callas' end-of-life story and a useful counterpoint to her studied poise and aloofness in this interpretation.
• indieWire: Jolie's broadly theatrical but delicately unraveling performance feels immersive and self-revealing in equal measure, as if Maria Callas is a conduit for her to reclaim her own identity as an artist and a human being.
• Little White Lies: There's an ethereal quality to Jolie's performance that matches Callas' legendary persona, and despite the deep sense of melancholy that pervades the film like a ghostly veil, this is still a love story – and one where the heroine lives forever.
• Vanity Fair: There is something arbitrary, unspecific about the film. With a few details removed, Maria could be about any grand diva, this blurry picture of a woman swanning through the final week of her life.
• BBC.com: Knight has written countless lines of spikily witty, quotable dialogue, and it's never a chore to watch a beautiful actor wearing beautiful outfits in beautiful Paris locations.