Angelina Jolie has been tipped to win her second Academy Award, after her biopic Maria received an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, despite lacklustre reviews from critics.
The actress, 49, has taken on the role of revered opera singer Maria Callas in the film, and following its premiere, some fans were to quick to predict she’ll be battling it out for Best Actress at next year’s ceremony.
Following its release, the drama, which concludes Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of pictures about embattled women of wealth, was greeted with a rapturous reception and eight minutes of applause.
It was a reception akin to that of Brendan Fraser’s comeback performance in The Whale, which eventually won him the Oscar for Best Actor.
Angelina was visibly emotional in the wake of the response, wiping away tears and turning her face away from the cheering.
Angelina Jolie has been tipped to win her second Oscar, after her biopic Maria received an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, despite lacklustre reviews
The actress has taken on the role of revered opera singer Maria Callas in the film, and fans are already tipping her to win the Oscar for Best Actress
Following the premiere, several fans declared that it’s kickstarted her campaign to win her second Academy Award in 2025, exactly 25 years after she was awarded the Supporting Actress prize for Girl, Interrupted.
Posts on X included: ‘Looks like its gonna be a cate blanchett vs angelina jolie best actress race in the oscars;
‘I’m so sorry for Amy Adams and Soairse Ronan, but Angelina Jolie will take the Oscar. Maybe this is still not the right time yet for both of them to win an Oscar;’
‘The angelina jolie oscar campaign begins now.’
Maria was hailed as the greatest voice in the history of opera, and the biopic depicts her during the final week of her life, before her death in 1977.
She was not just known for her incredible voice, which helped make her one of the top opera singers of the 20th century, but also for her striking beauty which put a spotlight on her many romances.
Maria battled ill health during her final years, and the film shines a light on her deteriorating mental state as she dreams of the prospect of performing once again, with her marriage to Ari Onassis at the forefront.
Despite the film’s positive reception, reviews have been more mixed, with many, including The Daily Mail’s Brian Viner casting doubt over the film itself, while praising Angelina’s performance.
Following the premiere, several fans declared that it’s kickstarted her campaign to win her second Academy Award
Branding her character a ‘whining, self-pitying, endlessly needy victim,’ he nonetheless noted: ‘All that said, Jolie gives one of the performances of her career.
‘This might be a flawed depiction of Callas but not by her; wearing enough mascara to sink one of Onassis’s ships she is completely believable in the role and even does some of her own warbling alongside some top-class lip-synching to the real Callas, having reportedly trained for seven months until she was ready to perform in public for the first time. Admittedly I’m no expert but I couldn’t tell the difference.’
Kevin Maher from The Times agreed, awarding the film two stars, and writing: ‘This is a film fed by, and consistently cutting to, the operas that defined its subject. Yet there is not a single moment that is emotionally operatic. It is wilfully, wearily flat.’
Awarding the film three stars, BBC’s Nicholas Barber said: ‘The film is also too adoring and reverential to let us sympathise with its supposedly fragile heroine.
‘Unusually for someone who is drug-addled and terminally ill, Jolie’s Callas never looks anything less than magnificent, and she is always supremely dignified, poised and confident, out-quipping everyone who crosses her path.’
The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin gave the film four stars, writing: ‘Jolie is given ample space to dazzle, but less to surprise.
Following its release, the drama, which concludes Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of pictures about embattled women of wealth, was greeted with eight minutes of applause
Angelina was visibly emotional in the wake of the response, wiping away tears and turning her face away from the cheering
Maria focuses on the iconic opera singer in the last few days of her 53 years, seeing her dead lover Onassis in torrid dreams and tormented attempts to rediscover her voice
‘Dazzle she does though, with a fine understanding of just how camp she can go without proceedings becoming too operatic for their own good.
Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson said that even with Angelina’s performance, the film ‘struggles to hit the high notes.’
He said: ‘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.’
However, Deadline critic Stephanie Bunbury described Angelina, as ‘an almost magical match for the real diva.’
‘The actor’s commitment to this creation is obvious at every turn,’ she said ‘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.’
The Guardian critic Xan Brooks awarded the film four stars, writing: ‘Midway through, I was all set to file this as a posturing distraction, destined for a life as a high-camp curio. But it ground me down, won me over and by the closing credits, God help us, I was hoping for an encore.’
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey also praised Angelina’s performance writing: ‘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.’
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote that Angelina ‘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.’
Angelina spent seven months training how to sing for her role in the film, and she performs as Maria Callas at the point when she was close to death and losing her voice.
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Angelina Jolie attends the 81st Venice Film Festival premiere of Maria
Producers have indicated that they blended Angelina’s voice with Callas.
Detailing her unease at singing publicly for the first time, she said: ‘Everybody here knows I was terribly nervous about the singing. I spent almost seven months training because when you work with (director) Pablo (Larrain) you cant do anything by half.
‘He demands in a most wonderful way that that you really do the work and really learn and train.
‘My first time singing I was so nervous that my sons were there and they helped to block the door so that nobody else was coming in.’
‘And I was shaky. Pablo in his decency started me in a small room and ended me in La Scala. So he gave me a time to grow. I was frightened to live up to her and you know I had not sung in public.’
Pablo Larrain said that the film was a celebration of Callas’ life and Jolie added that she hoped that the singer had known at the end of her life how loved she was.
Callas, hailed as the greatest voice in the history of opera, died aged only 53 in 1977 after a period of ill health and isolation.
She had been heartbroken after husband Ari Onassis abandoned her for JFK’s widow Jackie Kennedy.
Angelina has played famous people before: In 1998 she starred as tragic supermodel Gia Carangi in Gia and in 2007 she starred as Mariana Pearl in the film A Mighty Heart.
The director, who is best known for the bio pictures Jackie (about Jackie Kennedy, played by Natalie Portman) and Spencer (about Princess Diana, played by Kristen Stewart), said: ‘Having the chance to combine my two most deep and personal passions, cinema and opera, has been a long-awaited dream,’ Larraín said.
‘To do this with Angelina, a supremely brave and curious artist, is a fascinating opportunity. A true gift.’
Maria was written by Steven Knight prior to Hollywood’s WGA strike and granted a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement.
Callas lived from 1923 until 1977. She was born in American of Greek heritage and then trained in Greece as well as Italy.
She was not just known for her incredible voice, which helped make her one of the top opera singers of the 20th century, but also for her striking beauty which put a spotlight on her many romances.