Loving Pablo

8/29/2022

A caption at the beginning of Loving Pablo informs us that “This film is inspired by real events. Some of the characters, names, and events have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes." What they don't tell us is that even the protagonists’ nationalities and languages have been changed. Colombians Pablo Escobar and Virginia Vallejo are played by Spanish actors speaking English – or, at the very least, trying to; Javier Bardem's English is atrocious and Penelope Cruz's is abominable, and their Colombian accents are just as bad, if not worse. To confuse things further, the characters occasionally say some random words or phrases in Spanish. Now, I don't think it's asking too much of the audience to pretend that the characters are speaking Spanish among themselves even as the actors d