Angelina Jolie glides through the final days of Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria." Currently playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix Dec. 11, “Maria," rated R, plays like an opera, grandly theatrical and evocative of a larger-than-life star.

The Callas of “Maria” has far more agency regarding her personal affairs. In a flashback scene (one of many in the film, mostly in B&W), she blows off a brazen proposition by U.S. President John F. Kennedy with a raised eyebrow and the chilly query, “Where’s Jackie?”

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts behind the year’s buzziest awards-season films continues with Maria, the Maria Callas snapshot-biopic starring Angelina Jolie. Pablo Larraín directed the screenplay penned by Steven Knight.