Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

Eva Mendes Crowned Perez Reverte's Queen
May 21, 2008

It’s no surprise that the 500 page narcorrido novel La reina del sur, is being made into a film starring Eva Mendes. (For those not familiar with the term  narcorrido, it’s a kind of drug ballad famous in Mexico and adopted in Colombia: Think gangster rap meets cowboy hats and an accordion). The novel by the popular and profilic Spanish best-selleing author, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, is a thrilling hoedown of read. It was published by Santillana in 2002 and graced Crítcas’ Best Books List and best seller lists worldwide that same year. I read in Mexico’s El Universal that the film, Queen of the South  will be directed by the Venezuelan director Jonathan Jakubowicz ,who also wrote and directed a pretty good film from ’95 called Secuestro Express that starred Mia Maestro. The film, about an upper class family in Caracas who undergo a kidnapping, was glossy and gritty urban realism that satisfied.

Ms. Mendes’ (in the photo above) interpretation of the feisty, fearless, and fine leading lady of the novel, Teresa Mendoza, should work just fine, too. Variety said that Jennifer Lopez, Penelope Cruz  and even Salma Hayek were considered for the role. Mendoza is a Mexican woman who flees to Spain after her drug-dealing boyfriend is killed and starts a highly profitable drug business of her own. I’m guessing the film is going to feel a lot like Scarface. But this time 3 things will be very different: 1) The leading kingpin (or queenpin?) will have metaphorical cojones of steel, 2) that aforementioned actor will really be of Cuban descent and 3) they'll don a Spanish accent that convinces.

 
P.S. It won’t be the first time a Pérez-Reverte book is adapted into a major film. But hopefully Queen of the South will be watchable and not like his last three adaptations. There was The Ninth Gate in 1999 starring Johnny Depp and directed by Roman Polanski loosely based on The Club Dumas, about a book dealer and a 17th century occult text. Then the other box office bomb, Alatriste, based on his novels about a 17^th Spanish mercenary turned soldier of the same name that starred Viggo Mortensen. And most recently La carta esférica, another historical adventure on the sea that sank too quickly in Spain to get to the States. Let’s hope that this adaptation of La reina del sur doesn’t go too far south. Here's the interview we did with Pérez-Reverte back when it was released.

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on May 21, 2008 | Comments (0)