A Transfixing Angelina Jolie Can’t Save This Flimsy Biopic

Oscar season biopics are always tricky. But this one really misses the mark.

Biopics often suffer from Goldilocks problems. Too general in scope, and the movie feels too paint-by-numbers, too much like a surface-level recap of the person’s Wikipedia page. Too specific, and the movie ends up giving audiences too limited a window into the person’s life.

There’s also the perennial debate over whether biopics need to be historically accurate. In most cases, audiences tend to accept these films will take some degree of liberty with the facts — after all, they’re narrative films, not documentaries. But the question of exactly how much editorializing or interpreting the film can get away with can depend on what the viewer is looking to get out of the film.

The Goldilocks problems extend to the actor portraying the subject of the biopic. How much should they look like or sound like the person in question? Too fixated on the person’s physical traits or peculiar mannerisms, and the actor risks doing too much of a cartoonish “Saturday Night Live” impersonation. Too far removed from anything resembling the person they’re portraying, and all audiences will be talking about after the film is how much the actor didn’t look like the famous figure at all.

All of this is to say that with biopics, your mileage may — and probably will — vary. It’s especially true when a filmmaker is known for making looser, more impressionistic biopics, like director Pablo Larraín. But even when taking all of that into account, his latest biopic “Maria” mostly consists of just vibes, making for a flimsy story and deflating experience.

Over three films, “Jackie,” “Spencer” — and now “Maria,” which premiered Wednesday on Netflix — Larraín has honed a particular format. Each film follows a larger-than-life woman in history over a pivotal few days of her life, built around a performance that’s often more effective than the film itself.