Maria (2024) ending explained: How does Maria spend her last moments?

Maria is a biographical drama film directed by Pablo Larraín, from a screenplay by Steven Knight. The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 29, 2024, and was released on Netflix on December 11, 2024.

The film is about the legendary opera singer Maria Callas. The singer passed away on September 16, 1977, and the film is set during her final few days. The film ends with the singer singing one last time in her Paris apartment as the people in her life slowly fade.

The film stars Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, while Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, and Kodi Smit-McPhee are playing prominent roles.

Disclaimer: The article contains major spoilers for the film. Reader's discretion is advised.

---

The legendary singer finally sings for herself

Angelina Jolie (Image via Netflix)

The film begins on September 16, 1977, with a shot that shows the singer's lavish Paris apartment. The camera moves from fancy furniture, paintings, and chandeliers to a group of people looking at Maria's lifeless body in a white nightgown lying beside the living room piano.

Then the film flashes back to a week before, and the rest of the events of the film happen during that week. Maria had disappeared from the public eye for many years. Her last stage performance happened more than a decade back. Though the singer has not lost her voice, she is far from the perfection she once commanded on stage.

Maria had developed a severe eating disorder due to which she would often not consume food for days. In her final days, she took a cocktail of medicines that she obtained illegally.

In the final scene of the film, she sings one last time, not for an audience but for herself. She sang her heart out, which stopped the passersby on the street below her apartment. Even her butler and housekeeper, Ferruccio and Bruna, the last two remaining people in her life, stopped to listen to her singing. After the singing stopped, the two rushed upstairs but found Maria on the floor. She had collapsed on the floor and died of a heart attack.

Talking about the ending of the film, director Pablo Larraín told Netflix,

“And now in this film, at the end of her life, she decides to do it for herself. She’s going to try to sing for herself. This is a movie about someone who is looking to find her own voice and understand her identity.”

---

Maria often fantasizes that she is visited by Aristotle Onassis's ghost

The story doesn't solely focus on the final week of the singer's life; it also showcases other aspects of her life through various flashbacks that are presented in black and white. Some of the important flashbacks show her bad relationship with her mother, her time during World War II when she was asked to please German soldiers, her meeting with John F. Kennedy, and her relationship with Aristotle Onassis.

She often fantasizes that she’s being visited by the ghost of Onassis. She fell in love with the Greek shipping magnate in 1959, but their relationship ended in 1968. Onassis left Callas for Jacqueline Kennedy, who was the subject of Pablo Larrain's earlier film Jackie.

---

Did Angelina Jolie sing in the film?

Kodi Smit-McPhe as Mandrax (Image via Netflix)

Angelina Jolie plays the role of the legend with earnestness, showcasing her complex emotions through every trial and triumph. She had to train as an opera singer to capture Callas's enigma on stage. According to Netflix,

"The opera performances in the film are made up of a combination of Jolie’s voice and archival recordings of Maria Callas."

Larrain said that Angelina Jolie went through a variety of training at different stages in her preparation.

“At the start, it was with opera singers and coaches who helped her have the right posture, breathing, movement, and the accent. She was singing very specific operas or arias, and most of them are in Italian. You have to sing it properly and get to the right pitches, and that means being able to follow the melody and sing it properly.”

Angelina Jolie said that the good thing about playing Callas is nobody expects you to sing like her because nobody in the world can sing like Maria Callas. Apart from the singing, which is present throughout the film, Jolie captures the singer's tragic reminiscence of the loss of her vocal perfection, which used to pierce through the listener's heart.

However, in the end, her final audience was herself, and she sang for herself. The film ends with real-life footage of Callas when she had not confined herself within her apartment.

---

Stay tuned for more news and updates on Maria and other movies and TV shows on Netflix.