Pablo Larrain really needs to disengage from his cinematic obsession with bothered, conflicted, high-profile women.

First it was Jackie (’16), which starred Nathalie Portman as JFK’s widow — a film that I honestly didn’t care for. Five years later came Spencer (’21), a weird fantasy-laden psychodrama in which Kristen Stewart played Diana Spencer. And now comes Maria, a portrait of Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) in the ’70s, directed by Larraín and written by Steven Knight.

Maria will probably debut in Venice and then play the Telluride Film Festival immediately after.

HE admired Jolie’s performance in A Mighty Heart, but turning her kids against their dad, Brad Pitt, to the point that a couple of them are looking to legally ditch the Pitt name… that’s just shitty. Abusive alcoholics who’ve gone sober and have cleaned up their act deserve a little slack, a little forgiveness. So if it’s okay HE’s basic attitude is “eff Jolie.” Which also means, for the time being, eff Maria unless it’s blazingly good or, you know, extra-special wowser.