SUMMARY

It narrates the love story between Paz Achaval Urien, a successful, powerful and rich executive, owner of the agricultural industry in which Juan Manuel Aguirre works, a humble, unstructured and passionate countryman.

Juan Manuel Aguirre is married to Gabriela, with whom he has a daughter, Tatiana. Gabriela is a brave woman that will not give up easily.

Paz Achaval Urien is married to a man she respects but does not love, Alejandro, father of her daughters Bárbara and Milagros. Paz Achaval Urien lives according to the pre-established commandments.

Juan Manuel saves Paz’s life, so she wants him to leave the country and become her bodyguard. Juan Manuel does not accept. However, Fate will make them meet again, and from that moment on their lives will never be the same. The loyalty that Juan Manuel feels for Paz, the woman he protects, and the admiration she feels for her protector, will turn into a forbidden love. It will become impossible for them to be close without being involved, without being able to fall in love.

Source: Argentinean Telenovelas

OUR COMMENT

This telenovela has, at first sight, all the ingredients for us not to give it a chance. It’s a telenovela with a very typical Argentinean structure, three or four plots, in which there are two important couples of a classist cut and in which everybody ends up living in the same house – normally too many people (it’s to save up settings) – and in which the comic part falls onto the servants of the big house; and to make it more enjoyable, there’s always a dark and mysterious matter… shake the cocktail shaker and voilà: we get an Argentinean telenovela. Anyone who has ever watched an Argentinean telenovela could perfectly think we are talking about “Manuela”, “Perla Negra” or “Nano”.

“Amor En Custodia” has all those ingredients, but all the same, as it happened with the other telenovelas we named, we don’t know for certain why they hook us up, so that we watch them complete, and when we finish watching them we don’t know why we watched such a garbage, but we swallowed it all.

“Amor En Custodia” hooks you and we do not know why. Maybe the rhythm it has, that every day something new happens, may avoid boredom, and that is why it keeps you waiting to see if he takes his decision, if the other speaks, if the protagonist gets killed and so on and you end up watching the whole telenovela.

The main story is not very original, mainly if you saw another garbage, this time in the cinema: “The Bodyguard” with Kevin Costner (alias poker face) and Whitney Houston.

The idea is the same: in this case Paz (she does not sing, thank God, because with that rough voice it is better to leave everything as it is), a successful executive that suffers an assassination attempt, decides to hire the person who saved her by chance. As a love story it is tolerable, but we see a problem: Aguirre was already happy with his family, so we do not understand why he has to go and fall in love with the hysterical Paz. They make us think that Aguirre’s marriage was something monotonous, but that is not an excuse to fall for the first person you see. We do not like how Aguirre’s wife ends so that he can stay with Paz without suffering pangs of conscience. In fact, Aguirre was already in love with Paz before his wife dies, so the ‘sin’ had already started.

There are times when the scriptwriters make us believe, at the beginning of a story, that there are some extra characters, so that we later justify the fact that the protagonists abandon their respective couples and fall for each other: I don’t think it’s necessary to kill anybody or send them to the Patagonia to break a couple.

We can understand that Paz gives herself a chance with Aguirre because her husband, another successful executive, cheats on her the whole time and then gets involved with the villain of the story. How original!

The love story is tolerable but is forced and it does not add anything new – it is just about separating two couples and making a new one with people that have nothing in common. We like the poles apart stories, when the confronting parts complement each other; but if the couple has no future together it is useless. That does not mean that the actors Laport and Sylveira, who give life to Aguirre and Paz, do it bad; we just do not like the story, though they give the plot a funny approach.

All that discussed, we would expect the juvenile plot to bring some fresh air, but the author of the story opted for repeating the same story with Paz’ daughter, Bárbara, who also gets a hot bodyguard, without commitments this time, that ends up getting involved with her. It is very redundant and repetitive that the two couples are so similar. It was supposed that Barbara and Pacheco should give the story the fresh youthful touch, but for our taste, their chemistry is zero. We don’t buy it that Nicolas Pacheco, a womanizer who has suffered for love, tries to win Bárbara while making it clear that he doesn’t want to fall for her, so why does he sweet-talk her?

The story has no sense whatsoever; apart from the episode in which Barbara stupidly marries her boyfriend and on her wedding day she makes love with Pacheco – how inelegant of Barbara, dear God! They show their story as an impossible love story, but I don’t know why; and we don’t know if it’s for all the mess, the give-and-take that in the end the couple doesn’t end together for an important reason, but as the story went, it doesn’t make sense whatsoever: first, they make us buy that they were done for each other and then, there goes the lady and gets pregnant from another man. Does anybody understand anything here? That is why Pacheco does not forgive her and end of story. Insipid, tasteless and dull.

And, as if it was not enough, Barbara’s story is made more complicated by a social illness, that is the bulimia she suffers. The topic is a serious one, and as it is typical in telenovelas, it has treated in a direct way but without making a drama – the problem is seen but, as always, everything ends fine.

About the thriller or mystery story that surrounds the telenovela, well, you can believe it if you want, but the villains are too obvious, mainly Tango that, I don’t know how anybody couldn’t tell, just by saying ‘Good Morning’ we can see he’s a mafioso. But as it is always at the end that these things are discovered, they are also a mean to justify Aguirre and Pacheco’s work as bodyguards in the story.

The same thing happens with Carolina Costas, who is very tiresome – she is the typical villain who becomes friends with half of the cast, giving wrong advice to everybody to arouse a mess. How annoying!

And to finish, as a good Argentinean telenovela, we cannot miss the dose of mothers looking for their lost children or making it up with them, as in the case of Tatu and Nicolas’ mother. Everybody ends up being related to everybody.

THE BEST

Even though Soledad Sylveira has an unpleasant voice and her performance is a little vicious, we liked the way she acted; at least she looks professional, and is very likeable throughout the telenovela alongside Laport, since they do not do it bad as the mature couple – they bring freshness and spontaneity but they do not inspire that tenderness we’d like.

THE WORST

Well, as we have already said, though it was a successful story, we do not really understand why it was so. So we will comment on the trivial things, like Osvaldo Laport’s wardrobe, who wears Capoeira pants that do not leave anything to imagination. Wordless.

The final episode: the forced death of all the villains, as if it was an episode of “The Sopranos”.