Saturday, September 23, 2006

Complices

I knew I wouldn't be able to escape Chile without taking on at least a couple of vices. I have a newfound love for manjar, the dulce de leche-like caramel that's in, like, every pastry and dessert here and can be bought by the litre in the supermarket. But more surprising is my love for the Chilean soap opera Complices.

The basis of the story is that this American guy named Harvey who has a ton of money came to Chile and for some reason that I don't quite grasp, had to recruit a whole bunch of Chileans to pretend to be his family, and has to pretend to have this big company, in order to keep his money. Coronation Street this is not. So all these people are pretending to be his extended family, and they can't let anyone know they're not. Add to that all the usual soap opera fare - affairs, drugs, crazy people, etc. - and you've got a hilarious, yet addictive show. And it's on at prime time!

The show's frigging hilarious. You thought bad acting, low production values and implausible plot twists were unique to American soap operas? No way - it turns out some things are universal. The best part is that Harvey, who has this horrible gringo accent and bad grammar, is played not by an American, but by this Chilean actor imitating the way an American would speak Spanish.

But it's somehow addicting, too. And since I've been laying low for the last couple of days with (another) cold, I've gotten to watch it a bunch of times. Though the plot sounds complicated, it's well put together in that you can just sit down and get into it knowing the minimum of the background. And I can actually understand most of the dialogue, for some reason. I find it harder to follow the dialogue on other TV shows and movies.

Tomorrow I'll get to find out what happens to Soledad, who's Harvey's sister ( but not really, they're faking it, remember?), who declared her love for Harvey today, and he loves her to, but is tormented because he doesn't want to show it because it will ruin the ruse. Oh my god!

No comments: