Angelina Jolie on her way to a 2nd Oscar thanks to her portrayal of Maria Callas?

A few months before the big cinema event, Angelina Jolie seems set to be one of the favorites in the best actress category for the biopic of Pablo Larrain.

The 81st Venice Film Festival will end in a few hours, and while Isabelle Huppert and her jury are deliberating to reveal the winners this evening, there is one name that is on everyone's lips; that ofAngelina Jolie. She amazed everyone at the start of the festival thanks to Mariabiopic signed Pablo Larrain focusing on the last days of the famous singer's life. After years of success, her voice broke, and alone in a room in a famous Parisian palace, she remembers her past glory…

Will the star of Lara Croft and Maleficent win an acting award tonight? And will she be in the running again for the next Oscars? That's what's been whispered all week on the Lido.

Angelina Jolie cheered and in tears at the Venice Film Festival

The debates on biopics are inherent to the very subject of the film: telling the story of a person who existed in a more or less chronological and didactic way. Although they may never end, the fact remains that this genre is one of the great providers of prizes. There is even talk of “Oscar movies”. For Angelina Jolie, Maria could thus mark the occasion to win her second statuette, after that of the best actress in a supporting role in 2000 for A Stolen Life of James Mangoldwhere she plays a woman escaping from a psychiatric hospital with another patient played by Winona Ryder.

In 2009, the actress had already been nominated among the best actresses for The Exchangeby Clint Eastwood, but it was another actress who won the trophy: Kate Winslet for The Reader.

After Neruda, Jackie And Spencerthe latest biopic of Pablo Larrain is therefore called Maria. The story of Maria Callas – strangely enough, never before explored in Hollywood despite the frenzy of biopics at the time. A genius singer who became a true global star, she is depicted here through the prism of her life in Paris, shortly before her death.

Angelina Jolie's performance moved the festival-goers at the Venice Film Festival. Confusingly realistic, her portrayal of the singer lends itself less to the Actors Studio technique than to a real physical transformation. It's simple, with her big glasses and her slightly old-fashioned haircut, her inimitable voice, she becomes Maria Callas. In this sense, she is breathtaking and should, if the bookmakers are not mistaken, compete for the 2025 Oscar for best actress.

In addition, the prestigious award can honor a career in addition to a film. Understand: in addition to a memorable role, an actor who has experienced a personal drama or a more or less long crossing of the desert will always be slightly favored compared to a competitor judged to be smoother. We think strongly of Brendan Fraser in 2023 who won the Oscar for best actor for The Whale -preferred in particular to Austin Butler in the very polite Elvis -which shows that a biopic is not always a guarantee of safety- totally against type as an obese professor on the verge of death.

Here, rewarding an Angelina Jolie who has returned to grace after a good ten years of mixed success would make sense in a country that places resilience as a doxa. Furthermore, the 49-year-old actress shares with Maria Callas a personality that is sometimes misunderstood, if not unknown. Both made stars, they had to combine this celebrity with the management of their respective careers. A path of suffering for a woman in such masculine worlds as cinema and song. They also share intimate stories that are closely followed by the tabloid press, and often unhappy. This parallel would give Angie's performance a sharpness and “a tenfold depth”written for example Variety.

Another strong argument put forward this week by this essential Hollywood newspaper, regarding the chances of Angelina Jolie and Maria : the two actresses chosen by director Pablo Larrain for his previous biopics have both been nominated for the Oscar for best actress. Natalie Portman, who plays Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie However, she lost to Emma Stone in 2017 for La La Landand Kristen Stewart, who was competing in 2022 for her role as Diana in Spencer, was dubbed by Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Never two without three, with, this time, a victory at the end?

Nor should we overlook the contribution of studios in what is commonly called the race for Oscars. Indeed, the heavyweights launch a few months before the March ceremony a real media campaign to promote a film that would be eligible. The idea for voters is elementary: the more we hear about a film, the more likely we are to choose it. If Columbia Pictures is the one that has won the greatest number of golden statuettes in history, one studio has been putting in the means for a few years: Netflix. Which has just bought the rights to Maria. A financial and media support that could definitively pave the way for Angelina Jolie. If she wins a new statuette fifteen years later A stolen life, This will definitively consecrate Angelina Jolie's return to the forefront.

Angelina Jolie: “It's good to fight again”