Caray, Caray!

If you're just getting started with Barrera, go read the cast of characters below. I'll wait.

OK, did you read it? Good. We proceed.

At the start of this episode, we have a stoned prostitute leaving town on a bus; the heroine, Maite, being poisoned by her mother-in-law, Jacinta; her husband, Adolfo, an incompetent veterinarian, failing to cure his neighbor's cows; the hero, Unibrow, moping in his veterinarian clinic in another town but being attended to by a sexy young pet-shop owner named Nuria.

What preceded this episode: the prostitute was Magdalena (note the symbolism of the name?). She once was the girlfriend of Jacinta's son Adolfo, but Jacinta didn't like her and therefore went to Magdalena's father and said something: subsequently, the father ran Jacinta out of the house so naturally she became a prostitute.

• It's years later now, and Magdalena recently showed up, bringing a baptism present for Adolfo and Maite's daughter Valeria. Jacinta saw her, was incensed, and organized a gossip campaign against her among the women of the town. Under the guise of door-to-door bible study, a lynching was fomented. (I saw a few moments of styrofoam stones being hurled at Magdalena on a previous night.) Adolfo is upset that his mother was present and didn't stop the little lynching party.
  
  Tonight, Magdalena, with nought but one little bandage neatly in the middle of her forehead, is at a bus station headed out of town. Federico, who is a servile evil henchman to Jacinta, tells Magdalena she should go away and never come back. He's been putting spiders in her room.
  
  
• I'm going to combine all the poisoning episodes. Martina, a nice servant in the Valladolid household, has witnessed Jacinta putting poison in the tea, and mutters under her breath in Jacinta's presence - but in an incomprehensible Native Language - "Evil Witch, You'll Go To Hell For Poisoning Maite."
  
  Jacinta wants to hire another doctor because (oh, the unfairness) Maite isn't getting better. She gets herself a new evil henchman, too.
  
  Martina has managed to intercept the poisoned tea a time or two and therefore Maite is feeling perfectly fine! Martina starts to warn Maite, but Maite's aunt Griselda stops her saying, "let's not upset her." What a poor plot device! If you were being poisoned, wouldn't you want to know it? So you could at least stop thanking your poisoner for her kind attentions?
  
  Then there's some poisoned orange juice. "We'll take it up for you, Jacinta." "No, I'll do it myself, I want to make sure she drinks every damn drop!" A little fib about a telephone call clears the stage for Griselda to pour the OJ into an amphora, hide the glass, and subsitute non-adulterated juice.
  
  After missing a few poison doses, Maite is feeling great and comes outside, dressed for the first time in weeks I guess, to have breakfast with her dear mother-in-law! She hasn't had the nerve to hold her baby since (nauseated by the tea) she fell down the stairs with her, but she holds her now. Jacinta mutters in a thought balloon: "Whoever's done this will pay!"
  
  Martina, the Indian servant (she doesn't look Indian nohow to me), perhaps realizing she's the one who's going to pay - and that she may not be above ground much longer - starts furiously babbling, trying to warn Maite. "I killed a black widow spider, I was reminded when I saw your dress, Doña Jacinta. Oh those spiders, they're poisonous and dangerous! They bite when you don't expect it! They have killed so many babies! They eat their men!"
  
  
• Manola and her money-fixated mother are back from the airport. Manola is upset that her [UPDATE: I thought it was her dad but it's really her husband, an ossified ugly guy named Gustavo Zamora I think] forgot to send the chauffeur to pick them up.
  
  He's sorry - it's cause he's worried about his cows, who are not getting better from their udder problems. The mother has no interest in the cows' problems but she zooms instantly to her own self-interest: "Then we'll lose a lot of money?"
  
  
  Maricruz wrote: Melinama, the guy with the sick cows is not Manola's Dad is her husband she married him, when Adolfo left her for Maite. She wants him to die to inherit the money, and that is why federico tried to kill him en an earlier episode... I don't like the novela, but I enjoy your recaps.
  
  
  Manola, the daughter, tells her husband: "Your vet, Adolfo, is completely incompetent. He drank his way through vet school, he told me so himself. Better you should get Luis Antonio (Unibrow), we saw him in San Diego."
  
  
• Unibrow is sad. "I like taking care of cats and dogs, but I miss the cattle, the horses, the bulls, they are my specialty!" Therefore he's delighted to get the call from Gustavo (who has the sick cows). Let's take stock (so to speak):
  >

  Adolfo	Unibrow
  Handsome and young	Fat and old
  Bad or possibly being rehabiliated	Good, though boring
  Adolfo has Maite and also baby Valeria (see last item below).	Has a cute pet-shop owner, Nutria (er, Nuria) doting on him while he broods about Maite marrying the other guy
  Has a mother who will willingly murder for him.	Has Maite weeping over him
  Is a bad vet	Is a good vet

  
  There is a confrontation between Adolfo and Unibrow at the Zamora stables. Unibrow discontinues Adolfo's antibiotic treatment. The owner points out: "I can't sell milk that's full of antibiotics!" Is this a covert public-service announcement? Adolfo is way miffed. Don't forget, Maite vastly prefers Unibrow (whose belly made me laugh out loud) to her husband Adolfo, and Adolfo knows it.
  
  
• Ladies of the village righteously tell the Padre: "We stoned Magdalena because Jacinta told us she was a danger to our families."
  
  Immediately after that, Martina and Griselda come tell the Padre about Jacinta's poisoning project. He says it's a very serious accusation and he'll have to check it out himself.
  
  He goes to Jacinta and talks about the stoning but not the poisoning. He doesn't look so well. He may be a goner too.
  
  
• Jacinta remembers a conversation she overheard between her husband and his father. The father was saying, "if you're going to boink Remedios, at least don't let it get in the way of your family. ... it's my fault, I made you marry Jacinta when you didn't love her, and you go to Remedios for what Jacinta can't give you."
  
  
• There is a little lovefest during which the aunt, Griselda, remembers that Maite was given into her care by Maite's mother Eloisa on her deathbed. Griselda tells Maite: "While I'm alive, nothing will happen to you." (a) Since Maite has been raped and is now being poisoned, this is obviously not the case; (b) I believe this statement is a deathknell for Griselda.
  
  
• There is another lovefest when the evil Manola comes to ask the evil Jacinta to be godmother to little Rodrigo. "Who better than you to impart the best Christian values to my son?" Manola is the one Jacinta always wanted for her son Adolfo.
  
  
• Finally, Manola stirs up a little trouble by "mentioning" that she saw Unibrow in town, that he's come to treat the neighbor's cattle, and that he has a nice little bimbo of his own called Nutria (Nuria).
  
  Maite goes staggering into the house and tells her team (Martina and Griselda) that she only married Adolfo because:
  
  1. He raped her.
     
  2. Unibrow beat him up.
     
  3. Unibrow went to jail for beating him up.
     
  4. The only way Maite could get her sweetie out of jail was to promise to marry Adolfo.
     
  5. The newly-born Valeria is the consequence of the rape.
     
  6. Only three people know this: Martina the pseudo-Indian servant, Maite's aunt Griselda, and the Padre. "I don't ever want my daughter Valeria to know..."
  
  She still loves Unibrow, of course. I'm sorry, my suspension of disbelief has been stretched beyond its limits with this one. Unibrow is the worst love interest I've ever seen in any telenovela.

I hope we've got other people to carry on with these recaps. I'll plan to do next Monday. Write me at melinama@mappamundi.com if you're willing to recap (I think we have somebody for tonight.) Leave a comment if you read this. If nobody is going to read, we will pack up shop till some unknown future date.

Technorati Tags: Barrera+de+Amor, Telenovela, Novela

Labels: barrera

More excuses. It's going to take a little while for me to recap the Cristina show on Monday. Unlike Friday's show, which was obviously edited from this one, there is some real conversation here and I can't stay up to all hours since I have to go to a meeting tomorrow. Tomorrow night is my drawing class. But I will finish it as soon as I can.

Jean

Labels: Alborada

Hi all,

I WILL be posting a recap for tonight's show, but I couldn't watch it yet because a friend dropped over and I thought it would be churlish to say, "I can't talk to you because I have to watch Barrera de Amor. Then, of course, I had to ogle Fernando a bit on Cristina's show and now it's too late. So I will watch tomorrow and have the recap up for you then.

We only have, I think, three days of the week accounted for. So we could use some more regular recappers.

Labels: barrera, recappers-needed

Cristina (C) says that tonight is an ‘aperitif’ because of limitied time and the show will continue on Monday. She introduces Fernando Colunga (FC) with clips from his earlier novelas. Then Lucero is introduced.

C to FL: How do you feel now that the novela is finished?
F: Marvelous, it was a great cast and one of the best experiences of my life.
Daniela Romo (DR) comes down from the audience.
C: Who is this crazy woman?
DR pretends that she is angry that she won’t be on the show ‘til Monday and they haven’t killed her really and she leaves.
L: (while a clip of her kissing FL is on the screen) When women in public see FL coming, their jaws drop.
C: Don’t tell you are jealous?
L: Of course.
C: What is this? Are you cold, dear?
L: I’m happy to be here.
C: Tell me, was this a novela where you lost weight because when you were here last time you had a big belly and a big baby who is now a year old.
L: Yes, I was five months pregnant then and showing a little bit.
C: So how was it in the novela that everyone was so thin?
FC: They didn’t give us food.
C: Karla (the producer) was evil and didn’t give you anything to eat?
L: No, the truth is that we worked very hard. We had to deliver 100 percent and ate enough to be able to do that.
FC: We took care of ourselves because the public deserves to have us look as good as possible.
C: I have seen you working out, exercising but in all the years I have known you, I have never seen you look as thin as this (showing the famous shirt changing scene). In reality, you have always been in good shape but I have never seen you in such physical form. What did you do because this is the first time I have needed to ask this question?
FC: The idea was to change my diet, to make a change for the role because to play a person of that epoch was complicated, risky. People could not accept me as a person of that time un;ess they saw a different image. So I started working 6 months before the start of the novela to completely change my diet and look for a new sense of my physique.
C to L: Speaking of physique, this lady just had a baby and had “mucho fisico” (a big body?)
L: Yes, I had given birth six months before the novela started filming and was breast feeding so my breasts were larger than usual. In the low cut dresses of the period, women said to me, Hipolita, since when is your cleavage popping out so attractively? But it only lasted 2 or 3 months because I stopped breast feeding.
C to L: Was it difficult to change your image as Lucero because you are an active woman who doesn’t wear low cut clothing. Was it difficult for you to feel like the character you were portraying? [Jean- this is a stupid question. She’s an actor, right? That’s what actors do.]
L: I take the character of the person I am portraying – rich or poor, good or bad and then there is the makeup and the clothes. I think the Hipólita’s clothing and that of women in in general in telenovelas is sexy. They are striking.
FC: (interrupts) wild (salvaje)
L: Really?
FC: for Hipólita, for Hipólita.
L: Of course, Hipólita was supposed to be sexy, right. I believe that women in other times were sexy too but they were modest and didn’t show a lot but probably were sexy and feminine in other ways. What I liked was that the clothes and the fashion and briefly, my body, looked in those low bodices. I think it was pretty.
(Behind the scenes interview with L) L:A woman came up to me and said that she loved FC etc. etc. and I told her that there was going to be a scene where he took off his shirt. When, when, she cried. I don’t know but sometime. She said, what a man, how divine, etc.)
C introduces the producer of Alborada, Karla Estrada (KE) [Jean – in one of the ugliest dresses I have ever seen!] You promised us a lot of ‘bloopers’ and outtakes.
KE: It is done. (scenes play in the background)
C: First, how was the production of this novela different than that for Amor Real? Because you had to make sure that the audience didn’t think this Amor Real part II.
KE: What was difficult was that you had a novela that people liked a lot . So at the beginning we thought we might use the same costumes because they were very beautiful but we realized that everything was different in this period, the clothes, the colors of the walls, the lighting. The clothes were very feminine with the low necklines but elegant too. So we worked to make sure that nothing appeared the same as in Amor Real and we succeeded. The truth is that the novela succeeded from what the actors, the director, the screenwriter and everyone did. I have tremendous respect for what everyone did to finish up today.
Then followed scenes of FC going into the audience and asking women not to come at him screaming and L sings a song.
C: I know you don’t want to wait three more days for a whole hour with all the actors from the novela [so we have a teaser]
Luis Roberto Guzmán (LRG), who played Diego, enters and approaches FC.
LRG: I challenge you to a duel because, I am the Count of Guevara.
He leaves.
C again hypes Monday’s show and Daniela Romo sings a song.

Labels: Alborada

She sent this to me with permission to publish it... I don't have the time to translate it this weekend, but if somebody would like to take a crack at it, email your translation to me and I'll post it...

Labels: Alborada

If you read Spanish, a fan has a Network54.com site where she is recapping. Scroll partially down the page and there is a drop-down menu entitled RESUMENES. I think we have arrived at approximately Chapter 30.

Labels: barrera

To prequel Jean's recap of Wednesday, here are some things I got out of Tuesday's show (the first one I've watched):

• I don't much like any of these people - it will make recapping easier.
  
  
• In my opinion the first "barrier to love" is this fat old guy with the big black eyebrow.
  
  
• Maite's father's name was José, he met Maite's mother Eloisa at a fair.
  
  
• Griselda (Maite's aunt, with whom she used to live before she got married) is an old friend of Remedios. Remedios has just admitted to Griselda that the rumors are true: Remedios was Pedro's lover (Pedro being the evil Jacinta's dead husband) and Pedro was the father of her son Federico.
  
  
• Maite is a good cook and maybe runs a merendero (outdoor bar).
  
  
• Due to being poisoned every day by Jacinta, Maite is dizzy and therefore afraid to hold her daughter.
  
  
• Nicolas is the father of Chantal; Eloise (Maite's mother) was his first love.
  
  
• There has been a long, tiresome power struggle about whether this baby is to be named Valeria (after Jacinta's dead husband's mother) or Eloisa (after Maite's mother). I've only watched the show once and I'm already bored with this thread.
  
  
• Federico to his mother Remedios: "You always say my father was a saint and that he died in an accident." He figures out his dad had "another family" and that's why he didn't marry Remedios.
  
  
• Maite is trying to believe her husband, Adolfo, is changing - he raped her, got her pregnant, and then forced her to marry him by blackmailing her true love Unibrow, but now he's acting sort of sweet.
  
  
• Jacinta: "My whole life has been dedicated to others." "It's I who decide what goes on in this house."
  
  
• Somewhere else, Unibrow is about to take on a chipper, sexy young pet store owner as an assistant. Her name is Nuria - or maybe, according to the subtitles, Nutria. (A nutria is "an aquatic South American rodent resembling a small beaver") I can't believe she's going to fall for him.
  
  
• Magdalena, who I guess is "good," sneaks a baby present to Maite. Maite invites her to come in but Adolfo's awful mother Jacinta runs her off. Later, Maite's husband Adolfo explains: Magdalena used to be his girlfriend, but his awful mother broke them up - and whatever she said to Magdalena's father caused him to throw Magdalena out on the street, and so she became a hooker.
  
  
• Unibrow's sons nag him shrilly: "Why didn't you marry Mayte?" "Grownup's business."
  
  
• We see Jacinta poison Maite's special herbal tea. If it were me, I'd stop taking that tea - she immediately gets sicker every time she drinks it!
  
  
• At the moment Maite believes her mother-in-law is nice, and thanks her many times. Jacinta: "That's good, cause I don't like ungrateful people"
  
  
• If you like to read the esmas summaries, we're up to around the 18th of november...
  

If anybody out there has been actually WATCHING this show and has something to add, please join in!

Labels: barrera

I watched Wednesday’s episode of Barrera de Amor. Here’s what I’ve got so far. Thanks to Melinama for the cast list and plot summary.

Well, we’re on familiar territory here with an evil mother. Our heroine, Maite, is in bed all dopey while a wet nurse breast feeds her baby. Jacinta, her evil mother in law comes in and gives her a cup of tea in which she has put something (presumably a drug of some kind). The baby girl is to be baptized the next day. Maite wants to name her Eloisa after her mother and Jacinta wants to name her Valeria. Maite dozes off and Jacinta tells Adolfo, her son, Maite’s husband (and rapist) that Maite has agreed to name the baby Valeria. Adolfo is surprised but he believes his mother.

Next morning, the day of the baptism, Jacinta drugs Maite yet again. She advises Adolfo not to leave the baby alone with Maite or let her carry her child because of some incident in the past where Maite fell carrying the baby or something – doubtless because she was drugged. Adolfo defends his wife’s right to be with her child. Jacinta does not want Maite to come to the baptism.

Meanwhile Luis Antonio (LA for short), a vet, Maite’s true love who lives somewhere else, calls her on the phone. Maite says that she doesn’t want to talk to him but then tells Adolfo that she was pretending and she will love LA forever.

A woman, who I think is named Magdalena, is scared of spiders and somebody leaves a spider on her dressing table.

At the baptism, Maite shows up late, dressed inappropriately and acting like she is drunk although we know that she is drugged. She objects to having the baby named Valeria but is overruled by Jacinta. (This is the third novela I’ve seen in which the actor who plays the priest has appeared – as a priest. He’s a professional priest.) Some bitchy friends of Jacinta decide that she is drunk and say nasty things about her mother. A woman, who I think is Maite’s aunt and who works in Jacinta’s house, defends Maite’s mother.

We see Federico and Manola lurking around but they don’t seem to be contributing the plot at this point.

A blind woman gets a rabies shot for her seeing-eye dog from LA.

Labels: barrera

Catching up to this novela is going to be a challenge. There's no time to be subtle. So:

Maite (Maria Teresa): GOOD. She is our heroine. She was in love with Unibrow, the pudgy veterinarian, and always will be. She lived with her aunt Griselda (GOOD) until being raped by Adolfo. She married Adolfo so he would not send her great love, Unibrow, off to Sing-Sing forever. She has projectile breasts. She has given birth to Adolfo's daughter and is currently always nauseated because her mother-in-law Jacinta is assiduously poisoning her afternoon tea. This caused her to fall down the stairs with her baby in her arms. Now she is afraid to pick up her daughter.


Luis Antonio. GOOD. This is Unibrow. You get two pictures of this guy because it's unbelievable how unattractive he is. Tell me, WHY is he the love interest? Why isn't he the uncle who is a secret pederast? And there was a pudgy veterinarian love interest in the first telenovela I ever watched ("Niña Amada Mia") too. Every time he got to catch the gorgeous young heroine in a clinch I snorted with indignation and disbelief. What's with these old goats?

The site says: "A real man - intelligent, hard-working, strong and decisive - he does not fear to show his tender side. He doesn't tolerate lies. After his spouse died, the most important thing in his life - his two sons. Destiny gives him a second chance at love when he meets Maite."


Jacinta: THE WORST. "A hard, arrogant woman for whom prestige is the most important thing. Even though she is known in the town for being charitable and religious, at heart she is hypocritical and rancorous. She venerates the memory of her father-in-law, and dominates her son. Her husband never loved her. She pretends to be an aristocrat and hides her true origin."


Remedios: GOOD. "She was the true love of Jacinta's husband, Pedro Valladolid. She is a noble woman who was a schoolteacher. Now she works at the Valladolid hacienda and tolerates the arrogance of Jacinto so as not to endanger the inheritance of her son Federico, from whom she has always hidden the fact that Pedro was his father."


Manola: BAD. "An unscrupulous woman, vain and superficial, who cares about appearances. She betrays Adolfo with Federico, she doesn't love either of them. She wanted to marry Adolfo to get his hacienda." Her mother is still mad that her husband Nicolas (Manola's father) was in love with Eloisa (Maite's mother).


Federico: BAD. He has a low and scary voice. "He is Remedios's son, an astute and ambitious man who manipulates his mother and is servile with Jacinta and Adolfo, even though he despises them. He has secret relations with Manola, for whom he feels an obsessive passion. He is a treacherous and very dangerous man."


Adolfo: WAS BAD, NOW POSSIBLY BEING REHABILITATED. He is under the thumb of his awful mother Jacinta, who runs the hacienda with an iron fist and loses no opportunity to tell everybody "My Will is Law!" He raped Maite and then married her. Now he is trying to be nice. Maite constantly tells him she will never love him as her heart belongs to Unibrow.


Technorati Tags: Telenovela, Novela, Barrera de Amor

Labels: barrera

This was sent to me by one of our faithful readers! (Click picture for a larger view.)



On Friday the protagonists of Alborada will be presented on the Cristina show: Lucero, Fernando Colunga, Daniela Roma [Juana], Luis Roberto Guzmán [Diego], Mónica Miguel [Modesta] and Arturo Peniche [Antonio].

An hour full of laughs, pranks, dances, anecdotes, and many revelations. You'll learn how Manuel Mijares reacted to the incandescent love scenes between his wife Lucero [Hipólita], and Fernando Colungo [Luis Manrique], and what Colunga has to say about his two pornographic videos which are selling like hotcakes. [!!!!]

Fernando, according to Mexican psychologists, is the actor who provokes the most fantasies in women.

If you like the character Doña Juana, you'll be delighted to learn who inspired Daniela Romo, and about her true relationship with Luis Roberto Guzmán, who gives life to the character of Diego, her son in the telenovela.

Arturo Peniche and Mónica Miguel open a Pandora's box when they reveal secrets and private matters which took place during the series' production.

Carla Estrada, producer, arrives with the most daring and spicy out-takes, never seen on screen during Alborada.

You'll enjoy the pranks of Daniela Romo and Lucero, who dance the mambo with Colungo. There will be a lot to talk about.

Technorati Tags: Alborada, Cristina

Labels: Alborada

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Labels: index

Maite Galvan lives in Santa Maria, a town in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes. She is in love with Luis Antonio Romero, an older widower whose two small children adore Maite. Luis Antonio is the vet at the Valladolid hacienda and is about to marry Maite, but their happiness is crushed when Adolfo Valladolid, who pretends to be his best friend, brutally rapes Maite. In a blind rage, Luis Antonio beats him up and is sent to jail by Adolfo’s mother, doña Jacinta, the all-powerful matriarch of the Valladolid family. Maite’s efforts to help him are useless.

Maite realizes that she is pregnant because of the rape. She fears for Luis Atonio’s life and begs Adolfo to drop the charges against him. He agrees, but in exchange, she has to marry him. She decides to sacrifice herself for her love and accepts his terms. When Luis Antonio is released, he thinks that Maite is marrying Adolfo for his money. Filled with despair, he leaves town and moves to northern Mexico.

Remedios Gomez is the housekeeper of the Valladolid hacienda. She lives there with her son Federico, the bastard son of the late Pedro Valladolid, and Adolfo’s half brother. Federico is two-faced, sly and greedy, and he is obsessed with Manola Linares, Adolfo’s fiancee. Manola is a possessive woman; she does not love Adolfo but wants his fortune, and her passionate liaison with Federico is only a passing fancy. Manola owns the adjoining hacienda, and Jacinta despises Maite for ruining her plans to have her marry Adolfo.

When Manola hears that Adolfo has married Maite, out of spite she weds Adolfo Zamora, a millionaire as old as her father. Adolfo and his mother treat Maite with contempt and won’t allow her near her daughter, Valeria, arguing that she is incapable of raising her properly. Maite tries to run away with her child but is found out by Federico. Jacinta takes legal action against her for deserting her spouse and throws her out of the hacienda.

Heartbroken for having to leave her daughter, Maite goes to Mexico City, where she finds work as a cook in a small cafe located across the street from a bordello. Shortly after, Jacinta sends Valeria to a boarding school in Canada.

Life has embittered Luis Antonio’s character. He lives in Baja California with his sons Andres and Daniel and now has a veterinary clinic. The years have gone by, but Luis Antonio has not forgotten Maite, who is also still in love with him.

Maite has tried to get her daughter back with the aid of Victor, the owner of the cafe, but her efforts have been in vain.

In Mexico City, Maite runs into Magdalena, whom she met in Santa Maria. Magdalena was once Adolfo’s girlfriend, but doña Jacinta would not let him marry her. Now she works in the bordello as a prostitute and has a daughter called Veronica, whose father is Adolfo. When Magdalena dies, Maite takes charge of Veronica and works tirelessly to get her a scholarship to study in Canada. There, at the boarding school, Veronica and Valeria become good friends, never suspecting that they are sisters.

In Aguascalientes, the girls meet Daniel and Andres, Luis Antonio’s sons. The two young men help their father in the clinic, but Andres dreams of being a bullfighter. Luis Antonio does not approve, so the boy practices in secret.

Veronica has psychological problems and suffers from multiple personalities. Doña Jacinta has made Valeria think that her mother is a slut who left her father for another man.

Only love can break through the barriers of time, and a love as deep as that which joins Luis Antonio and Maite - even after so many years of being apart - now binds Andres and Valeria’s hearts. However, this young love seems fated to the same suffering that their parents have endured, since greed, jealousy and intrigue threaten them like a dark cloud of hatred and doubt, like a raging storm that might shatter their "Barrier of Love".

Labels: barrera

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Labels: index

La fea más bella could be translated as "The Ugly Duckling". It is an amusing store of love and triumph over adversity in which Lety, the heroine, shows intelligence, will power and a positive attitude in overcoming obstacles, developing professionally and finding true love.

Lety is modest, shy, romantic and intelligent, but not good looking. With her parents' help (Erasmo and Julieta) she has managed to study economics and has earned a graduate degree with honors in finance. Her only friend and confidant is Tomás, with whom she shares her troubles and her joys. They offer each other mutual support.

For Lety, being unattractive has never been an obstacle in her determination to get ahead. Sadly, she discovers that all her university achievements are not enough; she is rejected as an executive because of her looks. But she needs to work, and she accepts a job she is overqualified for — as a secretary at "Conceptos," a prominent fashion house.

"Conceptos" was founded by two good friends, Humberto Mendiola and Julián Villaroel. Soon afterwards, unfortunately, Mrs. and Mrs. Villaroel were killed in an accident, and Humberto and his wife Teresita (Fernando's parents) have taken over the upbringing of their orphaned children: Ariel, Marcia and Ana Leticia Villaroel, part heirs of the successful company.

Now that Humberto is about to retire, Ariel and Fernando are vying for the presidency of "Conceptos." Fernando is a young, brilliant and sophisticated executive who wins by the vote of only one stockholder, Marcia, his fiancée.

The project that Fernando presents to show his suitability for the post is ambitious, but not totally practical, and could risk the future of the business. Besides, the intelligent and arrogant Ariel watches him closely for any chance to wrest the coveted post from him.

Lety is competing with the beautiful Alicia Ferreira for the secretarial job. Alicia is very attractive, but frivolous and totally lacking in job experience. However, she is a close friend of Marcia, who needs her to keep an eye on her wayward fiancée.

Fernando refuses to be pressured, and expresses his preference for Lety. Lety is the best candidate, but Marcia insists on Alicia, since Lety does not have the looks for the job. Finally, both women are hired; Alicia, at triple Lety's salary, will work in public relations in the reception area, and Lety will have a tiny cubicle located in Fernando's own offices, managing the computer, the phones, the files, etc., and especially Fernando's schedule and private matters.

Lety, captivated by Fernando because of his defense of her against the others, becomes his unconditional ally in covering up his private pecadillos, which brings down the wrath of Marcia and Alicia.

Lety will endure mockery and disdain with the support of her fellow secretaries of "The Ugly Club." ("El Club de las Feas"): Irmita, the oldest and wisest; Sara, the skinny old maid; Paula María, a single mother; Lola, a woman abandoned by her husband; Martha, the fat girl, and Simón the messenger boy, unconditional friend of the girls of the Club. They all share funny adventures among the lights, the cameras, the gorgeous models and the glamour of the place.

But Lety's job at "Conceptos" has barely begun and, although she has her boss' complete trust, her future there is already in doubt, because she has secretly fallen in love with him. She will have to decide whether to continue supporting him by helping him manage very complicated financial matters.

Fernando, on the other hand, will begin to doubt her true feelings and her ambitions for power.

As we will see, there will be many surprises, and an unexpected change will turn the ugly duckling into a dream of beauty.

With a stellar cast and an atmosphere of fun, "La fea más bella" is refreshing in its positive approach to meeting challenges and overcoming obstacles.

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