Angelina Jolie, with one Oscar win, is being touted for another for playing the legendary opera soprano Maria Callas in the intense, admiring “Maria,” her first film in four years.

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.

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.

Netflix film Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín from a Steven Knight screenplay, sees Jolie playing the American-Greek soprano in her final days in Paris, as the diva reckons with her identity and life after a glamorous and tumultuous life in the public eye. In real life, Callas died of a heart attack at her Paris home in 1977 at age 53.

Finding the breath of Maria Callas was enough to bring things out of Jolie that she didn’t even know were in her.

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,