Maria (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Biopics are so rarely this beautiful and fascinating. Think of the onslaught of them that barely scratch the surface of their subjects; especially heinous in this vein are those about musicians, relying heavily on recreations (or lip-syncs) of famous performances to fill a runtime that hurries from iconic look to overly dramatized scenes of troubled personal lives. And each time, audiences decry what amount to jukebox montages, seeking artistic integrity and braver swings when it comes to depicting complex inner lives of our celebrities. Pablo Larrain does that, and I don't know why more people aren't talking about his trilogy of troubled wealthy white Western goddesses, which started with the amazing Jackie (2016) and transcendent Spencer (2021). 

Maria takes as its subject the renowned and influential American-Greek soprano Maria Callas, "the Divine One," in the final week of her life in 1977, in relative isolation in her Paris apartment. Due to her declining health, she has stopped singing for some years and hidden from the public, relying heavily on substances to cope with her failing body and mind while slowly poisoning herself in what is implied to be a semi-intentional self-sabotage. Yet the film suggests that she wants to sing again, so she paces the cavernous halls of her abode like a Victorian ghost, occasionally singing for her maid or butler, or for herself, as Hamlet's mother might say, holding discourse with the incorporal air. She even becomes sure enough of herself that she commissions a final recording to be made, though it does not seem that she is up to the task when the time comes.

Larrain is notably a fan of opera, so it makes some sense that this final entry in his trilogy is more sentimental and gentle than the previous two. Steven Knight's screenplay allows for lots of thickly theatrical dialogue that may strike some as unrealistic but struck my ears as exactly the kind of abstract pretense often voiced by high art professionals, particularly after having experienced fame. Anyone who fears losing their body as a means of professional craft will appreciate this film, as the otherwise beautiful and elegant Callas privately wars with her own perfectionism and atrophying vocal muscles. In one memorable scene, she declares that she cannot listen to her own recordings because they are too perfect, and real music should never be technically perfect but rather interactive and reflective of the present audience and space. It's this kind of knowing writing that allows the character to reach out from her circumstances and touch contemporary audiences cerebrally.

And Angelina Jolie more than rises to the occasion, proving yet again that she is an exceptional actress of formidable skills. She often mutely expresses ineffable emotions, fighting like King Lear against the raging tempest of time, refusing to go gentle into that good night, even as she cannot quite resuscitate her dying voice. It's not unlike watching Julianne Moore losing her mind in Still Alice, though it's a much-heightened piece of aesthetic drama in Larrain's vision rather than a pure character-based psychological treatise. Jolie allows the pretentious dialogue to lilt off her lips while maintaining an icy poise, the kind of camp diva we all expect of a star of her caliber; I wondered, at first, if this would simply be an excuse for Jolie to exhibit her own comfort and cruelty as a bonafide star in her own right, but she puts in hard work here, carefully skewing just shy of the usual rudeness and entitlement we see in films of musical stars suddenly lording over their servants and fans. Too, I have to say, Jolie's lip-synching is so utterly convincing in this admittedly difficult role -- and through numerous close-up, long takes of just her face as Callas sings -- that I repeatedly forgot it wasn't a live musical number. One moment even reminded me of Cynthia Erivo's magnificent singing in Bad Times at the El Royale.

Curiously, several of Callas's scenes of singing are played up quite ambiguously. Though it's clear in moments that she's not the great soprano at the height of her career -- which is saying a lot, as she died so comparably young at the age of 53 -- it's never quite clear if she's actually any good. The film weaves in and out of her headspace so fluidly that it's possible she's legitimately lost her voice (a few telling closeups of the maid in particular are almost embarrassing by proxy) or if she's still pretty damn great and simply not living up to her own personal standards. I love that choice, because, much as we saw so well in Birdman, the art is so rarely an objective thing that it has to be mediated by other ears and eyes. Not a far cry, that, from the death of the artist argument, of course, but it bears some consideration here.

And there are some moments, reportedly, in which Jolie herself does sing and we hear it, though I defy anyone to try and identify those moments, because the sound design is really phenomenal and Jolie is firing everything she's got at the role. And it feels oddly personal to her, which is also intriguing; much as her foray into melodrama in the possibly pseudo-autobiographical By the Sea, this smacks of personal investment for her, and it's hard to ignore someone who's been such a global star for as long as her ilk fretting and puttering around as they contemplate their own imminent demise and possibly incomplete legacy. All this, too, is to have said nothing of the miraculous realism and photo-accurate recreations of sets and costumes and hairstyles throughout the film, which seamlessly craft a memorable atmosphere for the drama and will surely excite fans of Callas herself. Anyone interested in the sordid details of her private life will be left wanting -- her relationship with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) is present and effective but sparse on specifics or on her feelings about it -- and the personification of Mandrax, her primary drug of choice amidst an ongoing medication cocktail, in an interviewing Kodi Smit-McPhee is both obnoxious and sometimes affecting. But as a slice of imaginative speculation into the life of one of opera's brightest stars, the film has so much to say about the cost and pursuit of art and what is left in its glorious wake.

Eternals (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5    ***updated

It can't be easy to step into the most fanbase-established, well-financed, studio-overseen cinematic franchise of all time and make something that feels fresh. The standard of superhero movies has been long set, and while every year threatens to end the hype, somehow the MCU (and, in my unpopular opinion, Warner Brothers' DCEU) manages to keep things interesting and moving forward. But as some of the more popular parts in Marvel's roster age out -- or die out -- I've been wondering how newer and more obscure characters will be popularly appreciated and welcomed. I certainly didn't know anything about Shang-Chi going into his first feature, and I was blown away by it. Something similar happened recently to me in a screening of Eternals, about whom I knew only the barest of details.

Basically -- and I mean very -- the Eternals are the ten children of a Celestial named Arishem sent to Earth in 5000 BC to destroy the Deviants, invasive monsters who kill apex predators. They succeeded and lived as gods (literally) in ancient cultures before spreading out and trying to lead normal lives, helping in small ways as they are able. In the present, the Deviants reawakened after the Blip, and so the Eternals band together to learn why; unfortunately, the truth is much darker and more frightening than they could have imagined. It doesn't help that the Eternals, much like any family, harbor feelings of resentment, joy, love, and loss between them, which makes their reunion rife with drama. It all leads to a fun but underwhelming climax that feels about as fresh as last week's cake. Its visuals feel ripped from any number of apocalyptic movies, and the action is almost laughable. But by this point, you do care quite a bit about the characters, which carries you through to the end. That's not nothing, but it showcases what Zhao could have used more help doing.

I confess myself a little underwhelmed too by the mythology of this movie. While you can certainly watch it with enough basic information to go on, I could not help wishing for more. Which is a bit absurd, when you account for its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. For its huge cast of brand-new characters, its extensive world-building, and more veiled references to less-popular Marvel titles, it almost feels not long enough; I couldn't tell you a whole lot more about the "significance" of any of these characters within the franchise even after seeing the movie. It's more of a standalone flick than any other in the MCU, which I guess is a good thing until the ending and post-credits scenes had me scratching my head. In fact, apart from a couple references to Thanos and everyone returning after the Blip, this movie was uniquely self-sufficient until the last few scenes (and, I have to note, the end of this movie teases Blade, which provoked me to let out a loud, excited squeal in a packed, silent auditorium).

Director Chloé Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, Nomadland) is a surprising and odd choice for this movie, based on her previous work. You can certainly see how she humanizes these characters and connects them to far-flung but very specific global and cultural locations; that's just something she's uncannily good at doing. That, along with finding perfect magic hour lighting in her landscape shots. Thankfully -- and I say this as someone who respects her eye and tone but generally dislikes her movies so far -- here her vision soars due to its intense, plot-driven structure. The credits indicate she helped with the screenplay, but I suspect it was others, largely, who brought franchise knowledge of the characters and plots as well as a sense of urgency and motivation. Many scenes are clear-cut with Zhao's easily recognizable eye for cool palettes, natural lighting, and relative stillness centered on a horizon; these are hugely important in introducing and establishing the enormous cast of characters in ways any screenplay would struggle to accommodate. On the other hand, when things do get expository, and messy plotwise, you can feel the pull of other artistic voices to "do the genre thing" and have more action, more cuts, brighter colors, louder sounds. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the film is pretty darn coherent for all it's trying to do.

But it does make me wonder what would have happened if directors had swapped so that Eternals had the spectacle-oriented director Cate Shortland, and if Zhao had in turn directed Black Widow. I imagine a more character-driven focus with the latter, one rooted in time and place in a way that film, frankly, squandered in favor of admittedly brilliant action sequences. The former, however, would have embraced a bit more of the "wow" factor, turning the Eternals into full-on gods with all their magic on spectacular display, while sacrificing the existing film's determination to make the characters real people with a sense of age and belonging. Fruitless considerations, perhaps, but an interesting way to rethink how these iconic characters materialize in the public consciousness and how easily things might have been different.

I guess, in the broadest terms, I most liked the cast of this movie and the casting. Easily the most diverse group of performers yet in the MCU, they also play diversity in a way that does not feel forced or contrived. Salma Hayek plays the leader Ajak, Gemma Chan's Sersi is the protagonist of sorts, Lauren Ridloff plays the Deaf superhero Makkari, and Brian Tyree Henry's gay hero Phastos has a husband and son. Who else? Well, there's the hunky Richard Madden's Ikaris and equally hunky Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, there's Lia McHugh as the androgynous and youthful Sprite, Don Lee as the strongest of them named Gilgamesh, and Barry Keoghan as the funny but creepy Druig (which totally checks out for him). Perhaps most interesting for me was Angelina Jolie as the warrior Thena; the way the film sensitively handles her mental illness is wonderfully refreshing. More surprising still, this marks what I think might be the first sex scene in a franchise literally built upon muscular models in tight outfits (I don't count Tony Stark falling off the bed with a reporter in Iron Man). It's nice to finally see some superheroes acting like real adults for a change, rather than just flirting or posing suggestively, and it adds a nice level of complexity to these characters in particular, due to their immortality and experience.

*** Upon a second viewing, I'm inclined to increase my rating for this movie. My concerns about the adaptation process and undercooked contextualization still hold, but this time I just wanted the movie to take me on an adventure. And I left the cinema this time with a profound sense of awe and warmth. This is, by far, the most theologically complex film in the MCU and possibly of 2021. Its entire premise questions humanity's relationship with the divine on a global scale rather than in culturally or religiously specific terms. The Eternals poke reverent fun at each other for being gods, historically, in the eyes of humans, and it's fascinating to see the way they (mostly) humbly shrug those titles off as cultures evolve. But then, right around the halfway point of the film, when the true stakes are revealed and apocalypse draws near, they band together to (SPOILER ALERT) stop a newborn Celestial. Essentially, they aim to kill a god, and it's viewed by the film as not only a good thing but as an imperative. It's fascinating and shocking -- less so due to a screenplay determined to not use the phrase "kill god" and by Zhao's wonderfully calm tone and pace -- and will surely lead to quality post-screening discussions.

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

Angelina Jolie is one of those amazing stars who -- say what you want about her acting technique -- manages to jump across genre boundaries with more dexterity than most others. Apart from her real-life persona, she has entered the niche of old-fashioned divas who were true individualists and demanded attention if not much else. And while she doesn't really perform prolifically, we might say, the ones she does grace are as varied and surprising as anything she's done on screen or behind the camera. In only the last five years, she's voiced two animated characters (one for Disney and one for DreamWorks), reprised her iconic antihero fairy, reimagined the origins of Neverland and Wonderland, directed and starred in a disaffected romantic melodrama with her then-husband, and is about to premiere in the newest installment of the MCU as a goddess/alien/superhero. And here, she returns to the kind of action-thriller that launched her international stardom twenty years ago.

The latest work from Taylor Sheridan is at once more of the same great stuff and disappointingly the same as so many others. His films (he directed Wind River and wrote Hell or High Water and Sicario) tend to depict rough, weary, and violent people clashing on the bleak frontiers of American wastes. And while the plots are always tight and deliberately paced, the themes and characters are endlessly complex. His hellish landscapes, drifting with sand or snow while baked by an unforgiving sun, provide a distinctly Romantic backdrop to the inner lives of his tormented protagonists. This time around, we're soaring above the hills and forests of rural Montana, not far from Yellowstone National Park. Beautiful, of course, and dangerous, it appears to be in the dry season, when lighting causes raging forest fires that can race like the wind and turn on a dime.

Have you ever heard of a smoke-jumper? Because I sure had not before seeing Angelina Jolie leap from a chopper directly above a blazing wildfire. She's part of a daring team of firefighters who, it seems, might be in this line of work more for the thrill than the fight; nevertheless, they are the first on the ground to try and hold the line of advancing flames. Jolie's character, Hannah, is quickly established as fairly reckless, perhaps trying to hard to be "one of the boys," or to escape some past trauma. Unfortunately, she's also slyly painted as a bit crazy, having just bombed a psych evaluation after witnessing kids die in a fire that she should have been able to save. Subject to bouts of PTSD, she's reassigned from a helicopter to a lonely watchtower, something she sees as boring and even demeaning. Will this movie feature her redemption or her destruction? Considering Sheridan's oeuvre, it's hard to predict.

Parallel to Hannah's predicament, we're introduced to Owen and his young son Connor fleeing Florida. Owen's shady work as a forensic accountant -- is that a real thing? -- has unearthed something dangerous in judicial offices, and now they've apparently hired assassins to take him out of the picture. Their cross-country trip takes them to Montana, where Owen plans to hide out with his brother; somehow the assassins know where he's headed and succeed in their mission. Partially. Connor escapes, meets Hannah, and their relationship blossoms.

Sort of. She's not exactly happy to have a kid around, and he's terrified of anyone and everyone around him. It doesn't help that the two assassins (played by a surprisingly scary duo of Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) are really good at their job. Target after target leads them closer to their prey until we find ourselves in a breakneck series of chases in a hellish wilderness: devilish assassins, walls of angry red flames, choking smoke and ash falling like snow, and of course injured heroes desperate to find sanctuary.

While I really enjoyed the film, more than once I found myself disappointed in what seemed to be unfocused storytelling. We jump around quickly and suddenly between a cast of characters that is a little too wide for such an otherwise streamlined primary arc. Owen's brother Ethan (Jon Bernthal) and his pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghore, who deserved a movie unto herself for this role) get a little less than half the amount of screen time, and the film hops around even to the assassins with alarming frequency. The result is, to be fair, a more holistic view of the community, the work, the region, and the network of characters; it also sacrifices a lot of potentially significant character moments that would make these people as deep as Sheridan's usually are. In many ways, this felt more like adventure thrillers like The River Wild or even ensemble disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure: a throwback that likes its actors more than its characters, and its conceit more than anything. I'm not mad about it, and if it proves the genre isn't dead yet, that's so much the better.

Come Away (2020)

 Score: 2 / 5

In an idyllic British forest, a beautifully multiracial family live their best lives. Children David, Peter, and Alice romp through the greenery playing fantastic games with tea parties and pirates. We experience much of it through their eyes, such as when a washed-up boat on a secluded river suddenly unloads its piratic passengers, and when the children's twigs become rapiers to defend them. It's all sweet and charming, the sort of fantasy we've seen in Finding Neverland and others of its sickly sentimental ilk, but warm for two main reasons: an immediately likable cast and references to common cultural fantasies. Here, the references are overtly to Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. It's very cute.

And then, in a tragic accident (that I didn't even realize was happening until later, no doubt a result of a pathetically PG rating), David suddenly dies. Alice and Peter, while trying to make sense of the tragedy themselves, see their parents struggling with addictive and destructive behaviors as a result. The brother and sister work together to help their family as the metaphorical wolves close in, launching on an adventure to improve their circumstances. I confess to being utterly unclear about exactly what the children are up to, and they come and go from the house with some regularity, indicating that they are not far away. While their parents stew in a miasma of sorrow and perhaps guilt -- their father's gambling addiction and increased debts bring violent men seeking payment, while their mother drinks dubious liquids from little bottles around the house -- the children run to seedy city dens where shadowy, threatening figures leer from the darkness and other children gang up in dank alleyways.

Director Brenda Chapman is no stranger to fantasy filmmaking, as she was a writer on animated Disney classics like Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Lion King, in addition to directing Disney/Pixar's Brave and DreamWorks's The Prince of Egypt. But this, her first live-action feature, tries to combine fantasy with drama in forced yet vague ways. Generally, I'd say this movie is a coming-of-age story about children who use fantasy to cope with their troubles. In the best examples of the genre, it's not unlike Pan's Labyrinth or A Monster Calls. Harsh reality provides room for magic and horror that creeps into our awareness of the world around us, teaching us about ourselves through the prism of the impossible. That's what the storytelling tradition began as; Homer used it for history and the Brothers Grimm had their morality tales.

But Come Away is certainly not the most polished of its ilk. I'd liken it closer to Bridge to Terabithia in its awkward handling of the boundaries between realism and fantasy. Both works feature starry casts; here, Angelina Jolie and David Oyelowo lead, supported by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Caine, and Derek Jacobi. Both work to understand the death of a young person, but ultimately don't come to much of a conclusion. Perhaps there ultimately isn't one that could fit in a family-friendly movie, if there is ever a way to understand or rationalize the death of a young person. Also in both, the fantasy elements are less logical and more emotionally felt. Come Away, however, has the particular problem that its references are to such popular and often-retold stories. Barrie and Carroll are too recognizable to be toyed with in this thin, inconsequential manner. Even when "Captain James" or a spookily unbalanced "Hatter" show up, we're not sure what's real and what's in the children's minds, and we often can't figure out exactly what the reference is meant to mean for the unfolding drama.

By the end, which seems to marry the stories of both Peter Pan and Alice, I even wondered if this strange mixture of the two was meant to be a first step into another, larger thing. As a grown-up Alice reflects on her life and coming to terms with maturity (pointedly noting that her imagination is the only thing she carries with her now), I couldn't help but feel that, had this movie been successful, it might have led to other ill-imagined mash-ups of classic characters in undercooked origin stories. But let's hope that doesn't happen for multiple reasons. First, I don't want to see Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella teaming up to fight off abusive parents or Dorothy and Pinocchio ganging up against their bullies (if it's not Into the Woods or Once Upon a Time, it can sod right off). Second, this movie comes dangerously close to abusing the children it purports to support; when little Alice takes a big ol' swig from her mother's "Drink Me" bottle of booze, which is totally in-line with the trippy source material, I couldn't help but worry about any children actually watching this movie. I cringed like I did in Radio Flyer, and that's just not a good thing.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

The second Maleficent works as a fairly typical sequel to its predecessor, meaning that it is similar to the first in style, function, and theme, while expanding its world and heightening its effects. The problem with that this time around is that the first one already had a bit too much breadth and artificial imagery.

Set five years after the first dark fantasy (appropriate, since it has been five years since the first movie), Mistress of Evil begins with Prince Phillip asking Queen Aurora to marry him. Maleficent and Ingrith -- Phil's royal mother, played by a particularly delicious Michelle Pfeiffer -- are not too happy about this arrangement, and at a family dinner they verbally spar to provoke violent reactions. The dinner ends disastrously: Maleficent is wounded fleeing the castle, and Ingrith is revealed to be a bigoted, genocidal villain. Maleficent rallies the fairy forces and launches an assault on Ingrith's castle Ulstead, unaware that the bitch has discovered a way to kill fairies.

And if a plot that goes from an awkward dinner party to fairy genocide seems bizarre to you, that's only the beginning. Maleficent, in reimagining the fairytale, mostly told a familiar story from a different angle. This sequel, however, adds to an ended story a wholly new chapter, a thankless task that tries desperately to combine fan service, artistic integrity, and novel entertainment. What it accomplishes more successfully, however, is artistic excess and a dizzying mix of impressionistic shorthand in both plot and design. If only it had leaned in and embraced its own heady weirdness, we could have had a new camp masterpiece.

Alas that we are left with the sundry pieces of disparate fantasies. While the central story is thick enough -- mother/daughter relationships, geopolitical strife, racist allusions, genocide and war -- it packs in suggestive imagery and themes that are as bizarre and unwelcome as they are clever and interesting. The Dark Fey, as the race of Maleficent-like horned fairies are apparently called, live in what appears to be a giant floating cocoon of woven reeds with a magical cave with various biomes packed tight together. Their leaders (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ed Skrein) have a strange MLK/Malcolm X approach to their human oppressors. It seems the flowers that bloom where fairies have died can be crushed into a dust that can kill other fairies. A particularly weird subplot involves a little mushroom pixie and a porcupine imp getting abducted and tortured before falling in love. In the climactic battle, Ingrith locks a bunch of lovely forest creatures in a church and gasses them to death using organ music.

The list goes on, and each example gets a bit weirder. Perhaps the most irritating to me are the two big plot points late in the film. First, Ingrith's scheme to frame Maleficent for cursing her husband is undone when it is revealed that she herself pricked the king with the same spindle that cursed Aurora. So, apparently, even though Maleficent's curse specifically identified Aurora as the recipient, somehow it also worked against her soon-to-be father-in-law? Second, when Maleficent sacrifices herself to save Aurora, she is revived from death due to her bloodline, apparently passed down from a legendary Phoenix. She is revived as a giant phoenix, and really it's just awful that she didn't get to become a giant dragon.

Despite its maze of half-baked allegories and attempts at relevant imagery, Mistress of Evil manages to keep its pace, its sense of style and fun, and our interest. It continues to make an iconic villain a misunderstood antihero, which I'm ambivalent about, but certainly can't be said to be forgettable.

Maleficent (2014)

Score: 3 / 5

Though an increasingly familiar premise, the prospect of a fairytale told from the villain's perspective remains an intriguing incentive to go to the movies. A story centered on one of the most memorable (and truly scary) Disney villains was sure to bring out the legions of dark fantasy fans and supernatural romantics that have multiplied in the last decade or so. Add the talents of Angelina Jolie and Robert Stromberg (special effects artist of Avatar (2009), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)) to the mix, and I was getting excited.

This summer's Maleficent is a solid Disney remake (or, rather, re-imagining) of a Disney film. It certainly doesn't succeed as well as, for example, 101 Dalmatians (1996), but it does surpass Tim Burton's promising and severely disappointing Alice in Wonderland (2010). I would compare its success at re-visioning a classic to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994) in that it works as a film, but corrupts the source material in surprising and unsatisfactory ways.

Given the film's clever premise and Lana Del Rey's haunting "Once Upon a Dream", I anticipated a very dark 90 minutes. And while Maleficent certainly is dark, it is not intense. It's hardly even tense. Though it hints at twisted motivations and erotic subtext, the film never explores these intrigues. As a PG fantasy adventure, I can't say I expected these things, but I had my hopes. The characters' motivations are murky at best, and the ambiguity is never justified. And the film's tone is a bizarre mess; I feel more confused about the implications of this re-imagining of events now than I did after watching the trailer. If the film was making a statement about living in a moral gray-area or appreciating desperate measures or something, I would be fine with tonal insecurity. But it doesn't make a definitive artistic statement that could lead me to that conclusion.

The film languishes in its own computer-generated beauty, wasting valuable time with long scenic overlooks and fairytale creatures that look like they came out of a video game. Whereas Sleeping Beauty (1959) is largely memorable because of its heavily stylized artwork, Maleficent's setting and action sequences feel like any number of recent fantasy films or video games.

Angelina Jolie, however, doesn't disappoint. Her performance is intense, subtle, vicious, intelligent; she obviously did her homework and comes to this circus ready to fly (literally). How refreshing to see a strong, truly independent woman who is thoroughly feminine and avoids being a "villain". She is a powerful leader, able fighter, and manages to do it all with a black silk nightdress and impeccable makeup. Her costumes are exquisite, ranging from a smoky sheer shroud to an ebony satin cocktail gown topped with a leather headdress. The unsettling combination of soft, smooth, and glittering fabrics provide a lot of room for Jolie to play with her character's power and sexual appeal.

She is not fully evil; indeed, she is hardly depicted as evil at all, which feels dangerously contrived at times. Though I loved the original character's demonic liaisons, this new manifestation works as a result of Jolie's efforts. My one misgiving in the portrayal of Maleficent's character is that she doesn't even curse Aurora to death, but rather to slumber. I suppose that goes along well with helping us believe her growing love for the young princess.

Jolie thoroughly sells the loving (if resentful) mother-role, and brilliantly underscores it with an eroticism that shocked and delighted me. And the true love twist at the end, though recently familiar, was a very welcome plot device. My lasting appreciation to the filmmakers, however, goes to one crucial element of the story: As Maleficent starts to embody a mothering figure to the young Aurora, she retains all of her strongest character traits. Maleficent is the feminist equivalent of a Marvel superhero, you might say. Too bad this woman has to exist in a fantasy world while the Avengers are allowed into modern reality.

One final thought: I now crave a film tribute to Tallulah Bankhead. Three women come to mind who have proven themselves worthy to portray the goddess: Angelina Jolie, Glenn Close, and Cate Blanchett.
Think about it. You're welcome.

IMDb: Maleficent