Steamy telenovela stands up in translation
The title may be a bit misleading: “Queen of the South” doesn’t have anything to do with magnolia blossoms and mint juleps.
The steamy USA drama, premiering on Thursday, June 23, is an adaptation of the Telemundo series “La Reina del Sur,” which, in turn, is based on the Spanish novel of the same name by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
The pilot episode begins with the shooting of the main character — not usually a good sign, but a richly detailed flashback keeps our attention on Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga), a young Mexican woman who has been eking out a living as an illegal money changer when she meets a dashing Texan drug runner named El Guero (JonMichael Ecker). She falls hard for him, he falls hard for her, and he introduces her to the drug business.
But the course of true love, and all of that, is seriously bumpy when you’re part of the drug world.
“I was living a dream,” Teresa tells us in a voice-over. “It was too good to last. I was right.”
True love is one thing, but ambition is quite another, and Teresa is both clever and ambitious. She gets mixed up in the cartel run by Don Epifano Varas (Joaquim de Almeida), who has political ambitions but is also competing with his equally powerful wife, Camila (Veronica Falcon), for control of the family business.
“Queen of the South” is one of the more effective adaptations of a telenovela, thanks to an action-heavy plot and a complicated, appealing central character. In other words, nothing gets lost in translation.
Braga is terrific in the lead role, and the supporting cast is equally capable, which helps counterbalance the unnaturally hurried pacing of the pilot. In short, a lot of stuff happens in the first episode, too much to be believed, but the character of Teresa and Braga’s performance are enough to pique our interest.
And if the rest doesn’t really hit the basic credibility bar, no one’s likely to complain much.