“Power, passion, and the price of loyalty.”
Loving Pablo (2017) dives into the dark, seductive chaos of Pablo Escobar’s empire—but it does so from a unique, unsettling angle: the intimate gaze of a woman who both loved and feared him. Directed by Fernando León de Aranoa and based on the memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar by Virginia Vallejo, the film traces the rise and unraveling of one of history’s most notorious criminals through the conflicted lens of his lover, portrayed with raw vulnerability by Penélope Cruz.
As Virginia Vallejo, a celebrated Colombian journalist, Cruz embodies a woman torn between fascination and moral collapse. Drawn to Escobar’s populist charm and overwhelming influence, she steps into a world where luxury and violence coexist, and where love becomes entangled with complicity. Javier Bardem delivers a chillingly layered performance as Escobar, capturing both his magnetic charisma and terrifying volatility—at once a man of the people and an architect of terror.
The narrative unfolds with political urgency and emotional disarray, offering not just the spectacle of Escobar’s empire, but the psychological erosion of those closest to him. Peter Sarsgaard, as DEA agent Shepard, adds pressure to the film’s tightening grip, representing the global forces closing in and Virginia’s potential path out—if she dares to take it.
Though the film stumbles at times in pacing and focus, its power lies in perspective. This is not merely a crime saga; it’s a reckoning with manipulation, delusion, and the cost of intimacy with power. Bardem and Cruz—real-life partners—bring a dangerous chemistry to the screen, grounding the film’s grandeur in personal destruction.
Loving Pablo isn’t just about Escobar—it’s about how tyranny seduces, and how those who fall into its orbit often pay the highest price.