Review: Loving Pablo
Loving Pablo is the trashy telenovela take on one of the most notorious murderers, torturers, and kidnappers you never knew you wanted. With Spanish supercouple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz essaying the roles of Pablo Escobar and his mistress Virginia Vallejo, the film lacks for neither glamour nor melodrama though perhaps many will feel it too cartoonish compared to previous film versions of Escobar's story as well as Netflix's acclaimed series, Narcos.
Based on Vallejo's memoir, Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, the film is mostly told through her point of view, beginning almost at the end when she, entering the U.S. under the DEA's protection, notes, "This is the first time I had to leave a country because of a man." That man, of course, was Escobar, whom she met several years earlier in 1981 when she and many other notable figures were flown into his sprawling estate to attend a party. A well-known newswoman who graced the covers of fashion magazines, Vallejo is intrigued by her host, who may earn his money from the drug trade but who uses that money to help the poor of his hometown of Medellín. Seeing him in this charitable light, she decides, "I don't care how Pablo makes his money, only how he uses it."
It wasn't the only thing she chose to overlook about Escobar, who was married with children. Though his long-suffering wife Victoria (Julieth Restrepo) at one point delivers an ultimatum - get rid of the newswoman - which he charmingly assures her he will do, her demands only help to escalate his affair with Vallejo. If writer-director Fernando León de Aranoa makes no bones about depicting Escobar's terrifying monstrosity, neither does he shy away from showing Vallejo's selfishness and superficiality. There's no doubt that she revels in the advantages that being his mistress has to offer, and it's all too easy for her to turn a blind eye to the bloodshed when it doesn't affect her. The minute it does, however, she scrambles for self-preservation, especially when she realises that she's not as indispensable as she believes. The hysteria that Cruz evinces when her lover physically threatens her and when she's attacked in a pawn shop is fantastic, stripping away the glossy and carefree veneer to reveal the raw fear.
Bardem, sporting a remarkable paunch and prosthetics-assisted neck, glowers with his trademark brutish charisma. He and Cruz are both so fiery that Peter Sarsgaard, as the DEA agent who convinces Vallejo to turn against Escobar, recedes into the background. To be fair, any scenes with the DEA pale in comparison to the more flamboyantly dramatic and violent ones concerning the all-out war between Escobar and the government. Though the narrative beats are familiar, de Aranoa executes them well and he expresses an undeniable knack for staging exciting action sequences. Behind-the-scenes contributions are uniformly excellent, but Loles García Galean and Wanda Morales deserve special mention for their Eighties-tastic costumes.
Loving Pablo
Directed by: Fernando León de Aranoa
Written by: Fernando León de Aranoa; based on the memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar by Virginia Vallejo
Starring: Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Julieth Restrepo, Oscar Jaenada
