I didn’t need to see Maria, the movie starring Angelina Jolie about the last week of Maria Callas’s life to know that it would feature a woman disintegrating as she remembers past triumphs and disasters.

Angelina Jolie completely transforms into opera superstar Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín's "Maria" through the hands of the Oscar winner's personal makeup and hair team, Adruitha Lee and Pamela Goldammer.

Yes, Maria is based on the true story of Greek opera singer Maria Callas, who died of a heart attack in 1977, when she was only 53 years old. Maria imagines the last few days of Callas’s life, in which once the once-great opera singer struggles with a drug addiction, hallucinations, and her declining health.

Callas, known as “La Divina” (The Divine), was an American-born Greek soprano who rose to fame in the 1950s and is often credited with the bel canto revival. She is considered one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century and one of the greatest divas of all time due to both her talent and her temperamental reputation.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Angelina Jolie plays the renowned opera singer Maria Callas in this biopic, which like the other similar films from its director, Pablo Larraín, tells this enormously impactful person's story through the prism of a fixed moment in her life.

Director Pablo Larraín is fixated on immensely powerful women in times of great personal crisis, but the startling emotional intimacy he brought to stories about Jacqueline Kennedy ("Jackie") and Princess Diana ("Spencer") is lacking in "Maria," his portrait of opera's supreme diva, Maria Callas.

Angelina Jolie opens up about personal struggles, her comeback in ‘Maria,’ and reigniting her passion for storytelling.