Loving Pablo is a film adaptation of Virginia Vallejo’s memoir, Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, about her affair with Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar, which I have not read, and if it is anything like the book, I don’t really think that I would enjoy it. The movie chronicles Escobar’s rise and fall as the head of the Medellin cartel.
Let’s face it. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are better than the rest of us so whatever criticism I have of Loving Pablo should not rest at their feet. Bardem physically transforms himself until he is almost unrecognizable except for his sultry voice. Cruz emotionally explores a side of her range that I’ve never seen before. Cruz goes from the belle of the ball to a pathetic, groveling, undignified, desperate and frenzied woman undone at the realization that there are limits to her power and painfully aware of her helplessness, but she occasionally rallies and shows more chutzpah than she actually should have on hand considering her circumstances. Usually married actors are a disaster on screen shortly followed by rumors of a split then divorce, but (God willing) never Bardem and Cruz. If a movie succeeded based on their raw talent alone, this movie would be one of the best, but it doesn’t.
Vallejo is Loving Pablo’s narrator and main supporting character, but her actual relationship with Escobar seems limited. She seems to know way more than she should in order to tell his story considering that their affair is shorter than the story that she tells. Her cooperation with the US government is crucial to her survival, but she doesn’t seem to offer any key details to taking her former lover down. When the movie ends, she is supposed to be testifying in cases. What cases? She barely seems germane to her own story. If it were not for Cruz’s performance, viewers would be clamoring to cut her character fairly early in the movie. She does act as an every woman caught in the crossfire of the war between her government and her (former) lover, but she is not a relatable character for viewers to empathize with. Early in the film, she said that it was not the first time in her life that she left her home in the middle of the night to get away from a man, but the first time that she left a country. To borrow from Black Twitter, “Oh no, baby! What is you doin?” Sis, nooooooooooo.
If you want to know where all the classic old school Hollywood glamour went, just look at Cruz. Her insults sound like compliments, especially in her scenes with Peter Sarsgaard, her American handler. When Escobar wants to protect her, she rebuffs him in a huff, “I’m used to men following me.” If Loving Pablo had managed to mash up the grittiness of Escobar’s actions with the pulpy fabulousness of Cruz’s dame performance, this movie could have soared, but the performances and the actual movie are on different levels and never coalesce.
It felt as if Loving Pablo had a list of events that it wanted to depict, then dutifully ticked them off without striking a balance between Cruz’s dame deliciousness and Bardem’s sinister demeanor. The overarching mood conveyed is unremitting brutality and intimidation. Animal lovers, stay away. Yes, I’m one of those moviegoers who can watch human death for hours without blinking, but if an animal’s feelings are hurt, I start crying. From soup to nuts, animals are casually harmed to show how cruel Escobar’s world is: horses, dogs and birds. On one hand, the movie successfully reflects how fallen Colombia is if even nature is not immune to his vengeance. On the other hand, it also didn’t make me cry because of all the other multiple scenes of violence. I’m not really into biographical crime dramas involving drugs because they feel predictable, and I just get numb to the whole thing. I’m not shocked by anything because I already know what to expect.
Loving Pablo’s most effectively conveys Escobar’s reach by showing how he manipulates the law as an elected official to protect his illegal enterprise, but uses familiar political rhetoric to provide a respectable veneer for his maneuvering. The jail scenes similarly show how he is above the law yet beginning to feel the constraint of his gilded cage. Bardem hauling ass butt naked (remember, this isn’t hot Bardem, but heavy, broad assed, stuffed gut Bardem) with a rifle through the jungle is more startling than any amount of sudden violence. His acting alone shows how unhinged and maniacal Escobar was. Dude, you’re too old and unfit for this life. Hookers all night and family all day—when his reign of terror finally comes to an end, it is the first time that you see the man rest. I wondered how many genius madmen have undiagnosed mental illness, and if they could be stopped earlier if they didn’t get positive reinforcement for so long, but instead were properly and promptly chastised at the first sign of misconduct. The more interesting story was how his son goes from unquestioning adoration to frustrated tolerance as he realizes that his dad is trouble and does not know when to quit. He becomes the more relatable story as he compares his life with the story being told on television and slowly becomes disillusioned with his father’s delusions while still loving him because he is his father.
I’ve probably made Loving Pablo sound better than it was. It felt never ending, and there was no rhythm to the unfolding of events. There was no rhyme or reason why the characters’ dialogue went from Spanish to English and vice versa. The subtitles were too small. I think that the filmmakers were torn between telling the personal story of the lovers, Escobar’s family’s story, the story of Escobar and the Medellin Cartel’s success and the war between Colombia and Escobar. It could have used Goodfellas as a model for its narrative, but then you lose Cruz. Because I have not read the book, I can’t say whether or not it is faithful to the source material, but a movie needs to make hard decisions about what to cut. Either the story needed to be shorter if it was going to use Vallejo as a central character, or it needed to ditch her and just focus on Escobar.
Loving Pablo should have been a guilty pleasure—equally reveling in Vallejo’s love affair and Escobar’s success and brutality, but gradually turning up the heat and showing Vallejo slowly sour and see her lover in the way that everyone else saw him, as a dangerous dictator who could destroy anyone at a whim. Instead it takes a realistic approach with a soapy narrative frame that gives the viewer whiplash as it switches moods then hits one note. It makes Vallejo seem dumb to not see that the other shoe was going to drop then she is just mad and in danger for the rest of the movie while all the action takes place elsewhere. It may have been a betrayal, but it would have been better to make her a little more complicit instead of believing her excuses and shock. If it is their story, it should at least feel like it, and it never does.