At the very least, I knew filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s “Maria” would provide me two hours of Angelina Jolie in beautiful clothes being beautifully shot.

Unfortunately, that is about all I got out of this movie, in addition to a very strong acting performance by Jolie as legendary opera singer Maria Callas.

I emphasize the acting performance because Jolie cannot pull off the singing. I read that to achieve a more “authentic” sound, they blended roughly 10% of Jolie’s voice with 90% of recordings by Callas herself. I did not know that when I watched “Maria,” and all of the scenes where the titular character sings just seemed very fake to me given Jolie’s fame and a tiny voice at the back of my head that was wondering who they dubbed in for the singing voice.

In contrast, we are given a couple glimpses to a younger Maria, and as I didn’t know that actress, the singing scenes felt much more natural.

The plot of “Maria” zeroes in on the last week of the singer’s life, falling into the stereotypes of a fading star who dies too young (her body is revealed in the opening scenes, so I’m not spoiling anything). I am not an opera afficionado, so I knew very little about Callas going into this, and I still feel like I don’t know a lot.

“Maria” attempted to depict her affair with Aristotle Onassis as a timeless love story, but it did not come off that way. It seemed rather passionless and transactional in the few scenes they showed of them together.

The plot focusing intensely on the last week of her life also didn’t help in generating a compelling story. Even one of Jolie’s most compelling performances in years could not combat these deficiencies.

Ultimately, the beauty of “Maria” is not enough to overcome the ugliness and blandness that are quite pervasive throughout the story.

Rating: 3/5