PobreDiablo

Girasoles Para Lucía is without a doubt the best comedic telenovela Iguana Producciones has created to-date. Gianella Neyra is absolutely spell-binding as the title-role of Lucía Trevi, a young lady who dreams of becoming famous like her idols Clark Gable and other classic actors of the silver screen. The Peruvian actress truly outdoes herself time and again as she gives life to the venturous dreamer who takes it a bit too far when she poses as a countess in order to win over a successful businessman, Jose Simon Landaeta. Girasoles is a refreshing change from the tension-filled dramatic telenovelas we're used to seeing, and if you're ever presented with the chance to watch it, don't let the opportunity pass. It's simply magical. Girasoles was filmed in Perú in 1998-1999 and stars Gianella Neyra, Jorge Aravena, Pablo Martin, Daniela Sarfaty, Alberto Isola (fantastic in his role as Lucía's Italian father), Yvonne Frayssinet, Ana Maria Jordan, Paul Vega, and Maria Angelica Vega.

When making a telenovela, there are plenty of things to consider: your protagonists, your villains, your story, and the length of the production. Milagros passes the villains and story categories with flying colors, but it's the protagonists and length of the this telenovela that should've been more carefully handled. Milagros stars USA-born Sonya Smith in the lead role, an actress who is very beautiful and fits the image of the character perfectly, but doesn't convince very well with her acting this time around: but who can blame her? It isn't very easy to pull off acting like a naive and extremely religious woman born and raised by nuns in a convent. On the other hand, Mexican Roberto Mateos was probably the worst casting choice this telenovela made in the lead role of Jose Antonio, a character who witnesses the massacre of his entire family at just 10 years old and returns to get revenge on the family responsible (Milagros' family, of course.) Jose Antonio is a role that needs a lot of emotion, and Roberto Mateos just doesn't have any. He seems to constantly force out his phrases as if he doesn't need to impress anyone being a main character, and usually looks small next to actresses like Yvonne Frayssinet in the most dramatic scenes. And speaking of Frayssinet, she is one of the compensating actresses who fill the void for Smith and Mateos, along with Karina Calmet. Yvonne Frayssinet is impeccable as Lucrecia De La Torre, perhaps one of the cruelest villains a telenovela has ever seen; and her daughter Fernanda, played incredibly well by new-comer Karina Calmet, mixes sarcasm with sassiness to form an irresistible antagonist. Needless to say, both Frayssinet and Calmet won awards for their performances in Milagros -- Frayssinet for Best Actress, and Calmet for Revelation of 2000. Other actors worth watching include Reynaldo Arenas, Mari Pili Barreda, Alberto Isola, Virna Flores and Tatiana Astengo. Milagros would've been more entertaining if the number of episodes hadn't been so unnecessarily high -- 220 episodes, most of which feature unbearable scenes of the male lead in a relationship with his secretary (played by Jimena Lindo), and made viewers forget that Milagros & Jose Antonio were in fact the lead couple. Hopefully in the future, América Producciones (the production house of this telenovela) will learn that even though casting the two lead roles does require the actors to be visually appealing, but it also requires for them to have acting ability. Milagros wasn't the first or last novela that made this grave mistake..

If you ever want to see a telenovela that can't be described as anything more than an insult, I advise you to agonize through Secreto de Amor. The story begins smoothly and looks like it's going to be promising, but as the weeks pass, more mistakes are made and the plot just becomes more and more ridiculous. The acting is painfully mediocre (its protagonists Venezuelan Scarlet Ortiz & Venezuelan-Peruvian Jorge Aravena are no exceptions), and the characters are either the sweetest thing since whipped cream or insane criminals who murder anyone in their path for no reason. The cast is made up of many different hispanic backgrounds, but this doesn't save it from being a total mess: Colombians Aura Cristina Geither (who is way too exaggerative for her own good) & Adriana Cataño, Cuban-Mexican Jorge Luis Pila, Bolivian Carla Ortiz, Mexicans Anna Silvetti & Ariel Lopez Padilla, and a slew of Venezuelans & Cubans including Astrid Gruber, Yul Burkle, Humberto Rossenfield, Griselda Noguera, Lino Ferrer and more. This novela is a prime example of a product that wishes to sell more for its pretty faces than its plot. Almost the entire cast has perfect bodies and perfect smiles, but almost all of these people's acting makes porn stars look like Golden Globe winners. If you've never watched a telenovela before, don't make Secreto de Amor your first. And if you're an avid novela watcher, I don't even have to warn you about this garbage. You know this is one you should stay away from. 0 of 4 stars.