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.

Telenovela Watch - winter novelas

Julieth Restrepo in La promesa

A catch up article on some of the telenovelas to premiere this year in the US.  The Colombian-made tele-series LA PROMESA is the best of the bunch, but it is also a depressing hour and a half to take day after day.  It features Julieth Restrepo in a large role, a young actress with enough peculiarity to be fascinating on screen.  Even when given desk duty in a dull cop series like COMANDO ELITE, she draws the eye.

QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS from Televisa, airing on Univision, and LA IMPOSTORA on Telemundo are dutiful, watchable, even enjoyable middle-of-the-road telenovelas.  POR SIEMPRE MI AMOR from Televisa, airing on Univision, reaches higher highs than POBRES or IMPOSTORA, but also lower lows.  It is also suffering from heavy Univision editing.

I found the Argos/Cadenatres telenovela INFAMES to be infuriating.  I found Telemundo's EN OTRA PIEL dire, the worst telenovela I've seen so far this year.  It is also badly overlit in many scenes, which I don't remember seeing on a Telemundo novela since the mid-2000s.

The article also has some words on DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO.  I have been taking more and more time before writing about a telenovela.  Most critical appraisals seem to be made after a single episode, which is ludicrous.  I used to take a couple weeks into the novela's run before writing my thoughts; I'm now usually taking three or four weeks.  I didn't do that with DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO, and almost immediately regretted it as I was too harsh.  While I don't think the first seven episodes were very good, it improves a great deal in this, its third week.  But like LA IMPOSTORA, it is a telenovela where the subplots and supporting characters are of more interest than the central plot line.  Unlike LA IMPOSTORA, it is the writing rather than the actors playing the protagonists that is the problem.  Still, Cynthia Klitbo, Marcelo Córdoba, Marisol Del Olmo and the temper-tantruming antagonist played by Esmeralda Pimentel are what I'm enjoying on that novela so far.

Telenovela Watch - summer novelas

A couple of my recent columns covering most of the telenovelas that have debuted in the United States this summer are available here and here.

The one gem is SECRETOS DEL PARAÍSO on MundoFox, a Colombian telenovela based on an early 1990s telenovela that seems utterly modern – a serious, complex look at devastatingly sad, lonely people. It’s the best telenovela of the year so far.

Telemundo’s DAMA Y OBRERO started well, but deteriorated into a mess. While the novela does not work, its lead actress Ana Layevska is doing some fantastic work. It is depressing seeing an actress with this much to offer slumming at Telemundo in parts frankly beneath her talent; one hopes she’ll one day get a juicy role where she can really stretch and show what she’s got.

Telemundo’s MARIDO EN ALQUILER is the best of their current lineup. Its lead actress, Sonya Smith, is badly miscast, but she’s so good, the telenovela mostly works anyway. It seems to exist on two realities – one side has solid, grounded performances. On the other side, there is some appalling cartoon acting from Martiza Rodríguez, Daniela Navarro, and Alba Roversi that keep this novela from ever becoming more than just decent. It’s hard to believe the same directors can be responsible for such a contrast in the quality of performances.

Televisa’s LA TEMPESTAD on Univision, while not the horror show we were rumored to be getting based on the press in Mexico, isn’t very good either. The central problem is the green leading lady, Ximena Navarrete – a spectacular blunder to cast a complete newcomer, especially as leading man William Levy is best as a reactor - he needs to be able to bounce off of somebody else’s energy. But Navarrete gives nothing, her inadequacies especially show up opposite a fine actress like Nora Salinas. Laura Carmine, an actress who proved capable of giving subtle, sensitive performances in QUIÉN ERES TU?, overacts fiercely here, but is enormously entertaining and strangely moving in what is ostensibly a spoiled villainess role. LA TEMPESTAD at least has enormous camp value which puts it a step above the rest of the duds making up the network’s current prime time lineup.

Finally, there is the thriller SANTA DIABLA on Telemundo. Telemundo execs were boasting in recent Variety articles about how their telenovelas, being produced in Miami, better reflected American life – and then they unleash this telenovela which shows not even the slightest understanding of the American legal system. The surprises and revelations in this novela come quick, but they aren’t grounded in anything substantive, so they seem like cheats. It is better looking and better produced than Telemundo's other two current novelas, and Carlos Ponce is an amusing villain - his unappealing screen presence finally put to good use; but its protagonists, Gaby Espino and Aarón Díaz, are ultimately weaker and less interesting than Layevska and José Luis Reséndez on DAMA or Sonya Smith and Juan Soler on MARIDO.

Telenovela Watch - LA TEMPESTAD debut

This week's Telenovela Watch with a brief preview of LA TEMPESTAD, starring William Levy, 2010 Miss Universe Ximena Navarrate, and Spanish actor Iván Sánchez.  LA TEMPESTAD has struggled to catch on with viewers in Mexico, indeed, most of Televisa's latest efforts are floundering.  Any call for more original, modern, innovative telenovelas is seriously undermined by Televisa's lone hit - CORAZÓN INDOMABLE - as old-fashioned and tired a remake as Televisa has produced in recent years.

Telenovela Watch - CORAZÓN INDOMABLE

Some thoughts in my Telenovela Watch on the Mexican telenovela CORAZÓN INDOMABLE.  It’s a big hit in Mexico and is doing okay in the US.  I kept delaying tackling it as my opinion kept shifting: I liked the first episodes, hated the next 20, liked the Pygmalion stage, don’t care for what has followed.

Venting on LA PATRONA

It’s hard to remember a telenovela as terrible as Telemundo's LA PATRONA that became a hit.  (Having just suffered through the first 10 episodes of CORAZÓN INDOMABLE, which is doing very well right now in Mexico, it just might be the year of terrible novelas becoming hits, but the jury is still out on that one - maybe it will get better.)

Back to LA PATRONA.  The performances range from the expectedly awful (Aracely Arámbula – pathetically phony as usual), shockingly inept (Jorge Luis Pila – he only seems capable of playing “arrogant dickhead”), one note (Christian Bach – who gives the exact same lilting read to every line and poses in every scene, arms back to hide the wrinkles on her neck and chest), to soporific (most of the supporting and younger actors).  Gonzalo García Vivanco and Erika de la Rosa manage some moments of life, but really, only Geraldine Zinat gives a performance consistently rich and of true feeling.

The plotting is absurdly terrible, rife with incongruities, faulty logic and holes.  Knowing the villainess played by Christian Bach is a several-time murderer who has done her and her family immeasurable harm, the heroine nevertheless decides to save her for last in her vengeance plot, allowing her to kill even more characters.

It is a telenovela brimming with incredibly stupid characters.  In the first 30-40 episodes, the heroes stupidly fall for every trap set by the villains.  The next 50 episodes see the villains fall for every trap set by the heroine.  Now, the two sides simply alternate their stupidity.

The vengeance plot of the heroine is so vague – it largely consists of her staring at photos of the baddies with targets drawn on them on a television monitor.  The villains are so evil, they would have killed themselves off without the intervention of the heroine.  The characters waft from event to event aimlessly - there is no psychology, no motivation - whatever is required by the plot at the time is what they do, and they seem to forget events that happened just a few episodes earlier.

LA PATRONA is so terrible, it would at least make for decent camp if the whole enterprise was not so morally dubious.  The first 30 episodes are nothing but an escalating accumulation of atrocities committed against the heroine meant to invoke a bloodlust in the audience so they can then revel in the suffering of the villains.  Thus, the audience is supposed to cheer when a woman gets raped in the desert – she’s just getting what she deserves.  It’s a novela that requires the audience to check its humanity and empathy for human suffering.