She made herself: a review of the mini-series "Griselda"
A rambling biopic of the "godmother of cocaine" Griselda Blanco from the creators of "Narco".
Late 1970s. Having escaped from her abuser husband in Colombia, Griselda Blanco (Sofia Vergara) and her children settle down in Miami. Gradually, the woman builds her own drug empire, establishes contacts with cocaine suppliers and ruthlessly kills her enemies, which attracts the attention of the FBI.
Who was the one person who instilled terror in Pablo Escobar? The epigraph of the new Netflix project answers - her name is Griselda Blanco. What exactly frightened Escobar drug lordess, you can understand from the series only partially: cruelty, uncompromising, unpredictability, obsessive passion for illegal business. For a detailed description of the life of Blanco in the creators of "Griselda" Andre Buys and Eric Newman takes six precious hours: the series starts spectacularly, sags in the middle, and at the end of the story lines and at all reduced to an inexpressive, cut-off finale. Often the only trump card of the show is the actress Sofia Vergara ("American Family"), who for the first time changed her comedic role to a thundering dramatic image.
To justify Blanco's actions would be at least strange, but Netflix treats her persona rather leniently. The authors paint another portrait of a woman-boss on fire: Griselda is forced to deal drugs because of a jammed environment, for the sake of the happy future of three sons, on the verge of life and death. Having dealt with her husband, the woman accepts the rules of the criminal world, to which she previously had no access because of her gender. The further Blanco moves up the career ladder, the harder it is for her to keep her sanity. Heads of rivals and henchmen fly, brother goes against brother, accomplices and friends are framed: the series demonstrates familiar patterns and matrices of behavior, diligently dramatizes them - and still yields to Blanco's conventional Wikipedia page, a dry recitation of facts that make the blood run cold.
Vergara can already be congratulated on her Emmy win, well deserved and the first of her career. As a Colombian, she often became the object of jokes because of her accent, was subjected to stereotypical casting, waiting for a suitable role. And the role happened, allowing the actress to reveal a spectacular side. Blanco in the hands of Vergara pictorially smokes one cigarette after another, actively trying his product, snapping at lovers and children, calls his son Michael Corleone (from "The Godfather"), encourages others to go to war with the Miami cartels to take away the power belonging to them by right. I want to believe that "Griselda" will not be a single act for the actress - talent at compatriot Blanco enough, not all had time to consider. However, much will depend on the Hollywood industry, still ignoring artists-emigrants.
In the 2010s, Blanco's story has already been transferred to television - it turned out ideologically dead biopic "The Godmother of Cocaine" with Catherine Zeta-Jones. "Griselda" still tries to captivate the viewer, but the final mission fails. The director and screenwriters don't want to deal with Blanco's motivations, reducing all the ambiguity and odiousness to tantrums, a set of deceptive experiences, lavish parties and gold guns. Escobar didn't sleep at night because Griselda was real. Netflix does everything it can to make audiences believe the fake, fall asleep, and never think of "mother" again.
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