The debuting Carlos Marques-Marcet offers his thoughts on the issue of working away from home in 10,000 Km (2014), a visually spare, but slyly perceptive insight into life in recessional Barcelona and the tendency of the myriad of modern communication devices and networks to push people apart rather than bring them together. Thirtysomething photographer Natalia Tena is hoping to start a family with teacher David Verdaguer. Yet, even though the bond between them is made clear in an audacious and slickly choreographed 18-minute single take, he refuses to give up his part-time post when she is offered a year-long residency in Los Angeles. 

Initially, they chat daily online and indulge in regular bouts of cybersex. But Verdaguer soon comes to regret recommending on Day 59 that Tena goes out and explore her new surroundings, as she embraces her new lifestyle and her jealous beau has to keep up as best he can by checking her Facebook page. As her messages become less frequent and more erratic, he decides to pay her a surprise visit and is dismayed by the coolness of his welcome. 

Although an increasing number of people are conducting their relationships via Skype, such arrangements rarely make for compelling viewing, as e-mails, texts, social media pages and even Google Maps are not particularly cinematic. However, Marques-Marcet (who doubles as his own editor) and cinematographer Dagmar Weaver-Madsen make canny use of deep space and tight close-ups to suggest both how Verdaguer and Tena are drifting apart and how he tries to regain control of her flown free spirit once he senses how peripheral he has become to her daily existence. 

The dialogue (part improvised, part co-written by Clara Roquet) also conveys the growing gulf between the lovers and their shifting concerns. But, while online sequences like the dinner party cooking lesson are cutely done, nothing surpasses the crackling tension when Tena finds Verdaguer on her doorstep on Day 201 and she tries to marshal her thoughts while he drinks soup and whisky and announces he can stay as long as she likes. The frantic love-making that follows smacks of despair rather than passion, but Marques-Marcet ends on a note of tantalising ambiguity, as the pair dress in awkward silence. 

Marques-Marcet won the Goya for Best New Director for 10,000 Km. But, while it began promisingly, his storyline became increasingly convoluted as it went along and Marques-Marcet allows the same thing to happen in his sophomore outing, Anchor and Hope. Reuniting Tena and Verdaguer and relocating the action to London, this meticulously made, but frustratingly underwhelming dramedy bears an unmissable resemblance to Daisy Aitkens's You, Me and Him (2017), in which the loving relationship between lesbians Lucy Punch and Faye Marsay enters choppy waters after the latter gets pregnant during a one-night stand with lusty neighbour, David Tennant. 

Seemingly content with their life on a narrow boat on the Regent's Canal, Oona Chaplin and Natalia Tena broach the subject of parenthood after the death of their cat, Chorizo. However, while Chaplin is committed to the prospect of becoming a mother and undergoes artificial insemination using sperm donated by David Verdaguer, Tena's visiting friend from Barcelona, it soon becomes clear that Tena would rather things stay as they are. But she comes to regret her careless words when Chaplin miscarries. 

Beautifully played by Chaplin and Tena, this determinedly alternative romcom is engaging without ever being particularly enthralling. In adapting feminist activist Maria Llopis's novel, Maternidades Subversivas, Marques-Marcet and debuting co-writer Jules Nurrish dot the action with numerous dead-end scenes populated by non-returning characters that clutter proceedings without giving the audience any fresh insight into the protagonists. Even the scenes involving dotty widow Geraldine Chaplin (acting opposite her own daughter for the first time) feel shoehorned in, as too much emphasis is placed on her hippy-dippiness and not enough on how she feels about her daughter's relationship and the prospect of becoming a grandmother to a stranger's baby. 

Despite his lively performance, Verdaguer stubbornly remains an outsider, whose ability to drop everything and stay in London goes as unexplained as his friendship with Tena and his readiness to help out when he senses that she isn't keen to become a parent. Yet, even though he appears to be a shameless womaniser, he must be sufficiently close to Chaplin for her to accept him as a potential father without a moment's hesitation. Such gaps in the narrative and glitches in its logic prevent the viewer from buying fully into the scenario, while the ease with which Chaplin and Tena fall apart and then patch things up feels equally specious. 

Cinematographer Dagmar Weaver-Madsen makes the most of the looming buildings on the quayside and the duck weed on the placid water, while production designer Tim Dickel ensures that the narrow boat seems both cosy and cramped in order to reflect how the lovers variously feel about their relationship. But Marques-Marcet overdoes the use of tunnels, bridges and locks, while underselling the legal need (and the possible recessional necessity) to keep moving along the canal and the impact that this has on the couple finding jobs and putting down roots. Indeed, this lack of a socio-economic anchor means that the picture often drifts. But it scarcely helps that it's so similar in so many ways to Daisy Aitkens's earlier outing.

Another Catalan exile takes centre stage in Elena Martín's Júlia Ist, which contains echoes of Carlos Marques-Marcet's 10,000 Km. Drawing on her own experiences, Martín stars as a 21 year-old architecture student who accepts a placement on an Erasmus exchange programme to spend some time in Berlin. Having never strayed far from Barcelona before, the short-sighted Martín feels out of place in her new surroundings and seeks solace in Skype chats with her longtime boyfriend, Orial Puig. However, it gradually becomes clear that Martín and Puig are drifting apart and she realises that she will have to embrace the opportunities the German capital offers. 

Letting down her hair and removing her glasses might seem a slightly clichéd way for a wallflower to announce her arrival on a new scene. But such is Martín's natural screen presence that she enlists the audience's support, as she starts contributing in class, exploring the city and socialising with her fellow students. Among them is Jakob D'Aprile, who seems to understand her better than Puig and they tumble into bed together. 

This isn't a formulaic rite of passage, however, even though it bears similarities to Las Amigas de Ágata (2015), in which Martín worked with the debuting directorial quartet of Alba Cros, Laia Alabart, Marta Verheyen and Laura Rius. She has clearly been influenced by this project and the freewheeling style of Lena Dunham, as the performances have a spontaneity that is complemented by cinematographer Pol Rebaque's atmospheric views of Berlin landmarks and hideaways. Rebaque also receives a writing credit along with Martín, María Castellvi and producer Marta Cruañas. But, while this feels much more intimate than Cédric Klapisch's ensemble comedy, Pot Luck (2002) - which took Romain Duris to Barcelona on a language scheme - it's no less ambitious or perceptive in its discussion of clashing cultures, emerging identity and the attractions and temptations of urban living.  

Spanish cinema's golden couple have made eight films together. Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz were first paired by Bigas Luna in his raunchy comedy, Jamón Jamón (1992), but they didn't share many scenes in either Alfonso Albacete, Miguel Bardem and David Menkes's Not Love, Just Frenzy (1996), Manuel Gómez Pereira's Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health (1996), Pedro Almodóvar's Live Flesh (1997) or Ridley Scott's The Counsellor (2013). They appeared to much better effect in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and will be seen together again in Asghar Farhadi's forthcoming Everybody Knows. But they are very much at the centre of Fernando León de Aranoa's Escobar, a biopic about Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his journalist lover Virginia Vallejo that has also been released under the title, Loving Pablo. 

Opening with Virginia Vallejo (Penélope Cruz) being taken into protective custody in the United States by DEA agent Shepard (Peter Sarsgaard), the action flashes back to Naples Ranch in 1981, as Pablo Escobar Gaviria (Javier Bardem) throws a party to celebrate the foundation of his philanthropic society, Medellín Without Slums, which aims to build houses for the poor people of his home city. He takes her to the Moravia neighbourhood to show how children are forced to scavenge on the giant rubbish dump and Vallejo interviews Escobar for her television show and reveals in voiceover that what she witnessed made her care only about how he used his money rather than where it came from.

Of course, Escobar is at the head of the Medellín Cartel and he takes Vallejo to a private island conference at which he divides the American cocaine market between his rivals. As she watches him at work, Vallejo admits that she found his power addictive, especially as he had sent strongarms to coerce her plastic surgeon husband into granting her a divorce. However, stunts like closing off a Florida highway to turn it into a runway for a plane making a drop attract the attention of the White House and, as Ronald and Nancy Reagan broadcast to the nation about the drug problem, a high-ranking official (Colin Salmon) gives Agent Shepard new powers to bust the Colombian cartels addling the brains of the middle class. 

As Washington and Bogota work on a treaty to make smuggling more difficult, Escobar begins to bribe politicians and informs wife Maria Victoria Henao (Julieth Restrepo) that he wants respect to go with his wealth. She orders him to end his affair with Vallejo and he promises it's over. But she is there to witness Escobar being elected as a member of the House of Representatives and is amused that he is barred from entering the chamber for the first time on 20 July 1982 because he is not wearing a tie. As Escobar teaches son Juan Pablo (Carlos Ramírez) to listen to Nancy Reagan's `just say no' message, Shepard makes himself known to Vallejo during a visit to New York and she is insulted when he asks about the nature of her relationship with Escobar. 

Back in Colombia, however, Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (Simón Rivera) attacks Escobar in the House and he is furious when a newspaper prints evidence linking him to the cartels. He warns the other leaders that he intends eliminating Bonilla and there is disquiet in the ranks before he reminds his partners that they are safe only within his tent. Escobar also terrifies Vallejo over dinner by describing in graphic detail how she will be raped by units of soldiers unless she accepts his gift of a gun. She is equally taken aback when she has to broadcast news of Bonilla's assassination by one of the sicario motorcycle hitmen that Escobar trains up at the Sabañeta Ranch.

A heavily pregnant Victoria is also horrified by this development, as the Colombian government concludes an extradition treaty with the United States to clamp down on the cartels. But Escobar has gone to Panama and, on 29 May 1984. he lays down his conditions to ex-president Alfonso López Michelsen (Álvaro García) about paying off part of the national debt in return for immunity from extradition. When Michelsen says he can't dictate terms to Washington, Escobar warns him that a war will follow that will have grave consequences for the country. Despite having just fathered a daughter with Victoria, he also slips back to Bogota to check up on Vallejo and chide her for not carrying her weapon. 

A bloody conflict breaks out, with sicarios being picked off by government hit squads and the cartels responding by arming people in the slums and jamming the phone lines when the CIA help set up a special bugging system. However, Vallejo is also a casualty of the war, as she is fired by her station and furiously threatens her boss with a reprisal before calming down during a meeting with Shepard. She flirts with him when he tells her that she has been tainted by her liaison and they are both spooked when a waiter informs them that their bill has been paid and Shepard rushes out to brandish a gun at a car parked outside the hotel. 

Vallejo phones Escobar and urges him to leave her alone because he has ruined her life. But the net is beginning to close around the cartels, with financial guru Abel Monje (Quique Mendoza) being gunned down in his car and Escobar himself being forced to flee the bed of his teenage mistress when helicopters hover over his jungle hideaway. So, he retaliates with a bombing campaign that includes the midair implosion  of a plane carrying two American passengers. Shepard tries to persuade his superiors to invoke a clause that would allow US forces to invade and eliminate Escobar on a national security basis. But Colombian diplomat Ignacio Velarde (Joavany Alvarez) and lawyer Ignacio Castro (Santiago Soto) surprise Shepard by negotiating surrender terms that would allow Escobar to serve a reduced sentence in relative comfort in Medellín's La Catredal prison. 

As he arrives by chopper on 19 June 1991, the authorities put the finishing touches to his quarters, from which he will continue to run his business without fear of extradition. Professional footballers are bussed in for kickabouts, while Escobar parties into the night with scantily clad women who depart as his wife and daughter arrive. When Manuela (Hannah L'Hoeste) asks him to prove he can go where he likes by taking her for an ice-cream, Escobar pops her on his shoulders and reaches a car in the compound before a combination of armed guards and a worried Victoria persuade him to return indoors. 

Meanwhile, having failed to reinvent herself in Miami, Vallejo is having to sell her belongings to survive. Even though she keeps moving, however, she continues to receive threatening phone calls and decides to visit Escobar to ask for his help. When he refuses to give her $80,000 to relocate to Europe, she threatens to squeal about what she has witnessed. But he disowns her for daring to mention Victoria's name and she sobs in terror at having made such a foolish mistake. That said, she gets off lightly compared to a couple of cartel leaders, who have their arms severed by chainsaw after Escobar accuses them of withholding funds. 

This outrage prompts the government to transfer him to a military prison on 21 July 1992. However, Escobar anticipates their plans and switches off the current to the perimeter fence and cuts his way out. But the butchering of Santoro (Óscar Jaenada) turns the other cartel leaders against Escobar and the government is able to utilise rival henchmen to conduct a counter-offensive against anyone associated with Escobar. Even Vallejo is targeted and she is grateful to the reinforced glass in a pawn shop for keeping two thugs at bay. No longer safe anywhere, she agrees to co-operate with Shepard and tells him to prevent Victoria and the children from leaving Colombia, as they are his weak spot. 

As the authorities had already sanctioned a flight to Germany, Shepard has to work fast to get them to turn the plane back to Bogata. Escobar is furious when he sees them being marched across the tarmac at the airport and phones them in their closely guarded hotel room on 2 December 1993. Naturally, the phone is bugged and a detector van scours the streets before picking up a signal in the Los Olivos district. Vallejo describes in voiceover the thrill of anticipation that fishermen feel while dangling the bait and she explains how the fish usually bites even though it knows there's a hook on the end of the line. Escobar seems aware that he is risking all by calling back to speak to Pablo and Manuela and he is gunned down by troops storming his hideout as he tries to make a rooftop escape via an upper-storey window. 

Gazing out of a window in a room close to where Victoria and her kids are flinching at the sound of triumphant gunfire, Vallejo thinks back to telling Shepard that Escobar had asked her to tell his story, but had failed to stipulate to whom. But this smug sign-off rather sums up the tone of this disappointing biopic, which does little to distinguish it from such other movie variations on the theme as Ted Demme's Blow (2001), Andrea Di Stefano's Paradise Lost (2014), Brad Furman's The Infiltrator (2015) and Doug Liman's American Made (2017). However, it hardly helps that Escobar's exploits have also been covered in TV series like Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord (2012) and Narcos (2015), as well as such documentaries as Steven Dupler's Pablo Escobar: King of Coke (1998), David Keane's The True Story of Killing Pablo (2002), Jorge Granier's Pablo of Medellin (2007), Nicolas Entel's Sins of My Father (2009), Michael and Jeff Zimbalist's The Two Escobars (2010) and Alessandro Angulo's Los Tiempos de Pablo Escobar (2012).

Drawing on Virginia Vallejo's 2007 memoir, Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, León De Aranoa struggles to present the action from her perspective and presumes far too much foreknowledge on the viewer's behalf. Moreover, he leaves large gaps in the chronology, with the leap from the mid-80s to 1991 feeling particularly jarring. Only four of the numerous characters are anything more than ciphers and, then, neither Peter Sarsgaard's Shepard nor Julieth Restrepo's Maria Victoria Henao is that well rounded. Similarly, Penélope Cruz (bearing her usual resemblance to Sophia Loren) is asked to be little more of a clothes horse who sports a variety of period hairstyles and occasionally slips into an emotional meltdown. Even Javier Bardem - who worked with the director to much better effect in Mondays in the Sun (2002) - finds it difficult to unearth Escobar's human side beneath his charismatic brutality, as he thrusts out his pot belly and hisses Hispanic oaths that require subtitles while the bulk of the often tin-eared dialogue is delivered in English. 

While it's suitably glossy, Alex Catalán's photography is rather perfunctory. But Alain Bainée's production design and Ma Dolores García Galeán and Wanda Morales's costumes are markedly more impressive, as is Nacho Ruiz Capillas's editing during the many action montages. Federico Jusid's score also confidently complements the fine selection of jukebox tunes that includes Dean Martin's `Let It Snow' and Santana's `Black Magic Woman'. But this scarcely feels like a story that required another retelling and such is León De Aranoa's lack of dash and daring that not even the gamely committed Bardem and Cruz can elevate it.