Telenovela Watch - September 12

Article with my thoughts on some of the current telenovelas.  I quite liked the quirky modest comedic Colombian telenovela MANUAL PARA SER FELIZ with featured a lovely lead performance by Marcela Mar.  Don't much care for LA MALQUERIDA, which is tepid.

Claudia Álvarez

I also mostly like HASTA EL FIN DEL MUNDO, the Mexican version of Argentina's DULCE AMOR, which has also seen adaptations in Chile and Colombia.  Claudia Álvarez has gotten some flack for her performance.  It is a tricky call - the character she plays is a bad actress given to drama queen tantrums, so from time to time, you have to assess whether it is Claudia Álvarez or the character whose performance you are witnessing.  Álvarez was the best thing in DOS HOGARES and up until the writers destroyed her character, one of the better things in PORQUE EL AMOR MANDA, and she imbues her character in HASTA EL FIN DEL MUNDO with enough vulnerability to give her the benefit of the doubt.

La Reina del Sur

LA REINA DEL SUR is a 2011 narco-novela from Telemundo that was the network’s only genuine hit.  Based on a 2002 novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, it follows a Mexican woman who is caught up by circumstances into the world of drug-trafficking and finds she has a talent to succeed in that dirty enterprise.

Cristina Urgel and Kate del Castillo

The first half of the telenovela is the best thing Telemundo has ever produced – pulpy trash that is swift, sexy and exciting.  Kate del Castillo is a dynamic lead, strong and fiery.  Her sensuality has always been on the butch side, but that works here when offset by a pretty boy like Iván Sánchez.  Their chemistry is the best thing in the telenovela.  The international cast also features excellent performances from Mexican actor Humberto Zurita and Colombian actor Christian Tappan, but it is a pair of Spaniards who steal the show: Alberto Jiménez as an unflappable Russian crime boss and an androgynous lithe Amazon named Cristina Urgel who isn’t much of an actress, but is a compelling, peculiar screen presence that evinces ineffable star quality.

The second half bogs down into more conventional narco fare and is far less interesting.  It was Kate del Castillo’s first telenovela in eight years and she seems to run out of steam.  She is not helped by her lack of chemistry with Miguel de Miguel, the Spanish actor who becomes the leading man over the final weeks.

But ultimately, the biggest flaw is LA REINA DEL SUR tells the same lie the majority of the narco-novelas tell in depicting its protagonist as a “good” drug trafficker in conflict against “evil” drug traffickers.

The cast also features Gabriel Porras, Salvador Zerboni, Sara Maldonado, Ezequiel Montalt and Dagoberto Gama.

Utopia - series premiere

Billed as innovative and experimental, Fox’s UTOPIA is little more than a tired BIG BROTHER retread of strangers living together and filmed for twenty-four hours.  The series is meant to last a year, but there was so little of interest in the first two hours that I can’t imagine this series will last even a month on the air.  The cast of fifteen men and women are obnoxious made-for-reality-TV stereotypes and each play their boxed-in roles predictably.  Unsurprisingly, the producers of this show provided booze for their cast in an attempt to prod some drunken drama, but half of the episode seemed to concern whether some morons will stay in the Utopia community or depart.  Who could possibly care?