To me, it’s a difficult journey watching a Pablo Larrain film, whether it is “Neruda” or “Jackie.” And watching “Maria” with Angelina Jolie was no different. I have read the very honest and heartfelt reviews on this film from professional singers and am reminded again that we are all perhaps as fragile as Callas in her last days.

Larrain is a filmmaker who likes his trilogies and this film follows suit after “Jackie” and “Spencer” where he lays out a canvas of empathy for his heroines…but not without the burden of darkest friction. Two qualities that can create great art and indelible performances as performers know. But it strikes me that it is the emptiness of legends that Larrain seems to have the most profound relationship with. In “Maria” perhaps he has found his most successful subject. Her life was laid waste in the latter years with her desperation of living in loneliness. And to me, that is the centerpiece of this picture. Loneliness.