This was a Netflix "recommendation" for me. So I checked out a few minutes of the first episode, and unlike most Netflix series where I lose interest pretty quickly, or make it through the first three or four episodes, I found this Mexican series strangely addictive.
The setting: A wealthy gated community somewhere in central Mexico (it was shot in Huixquilucan, between Toluca and Mexico City). The plot focuses on five couples and their families. Each have their secrets, problems and tensions within their marriages.
--There is the failing politician from a corrupt family and his always pregnant wife and their seven kids.
--A entrepreneur of some sort from Spain, and his wife. He is domineering, and physically abusive to her.
--An executive of a Dutch/Japanese firm who runs their Mexico business, and his socially ambitious wife.
--A female real estate agent who has to peddle property in the gated community because her husband is a layabout and pothead and she has bigger ambitions for her school aged son.
--A highly successful plastic surgeon and his wife -- his creation -- who he constantly wants to remake.
Each episode focuses on one family and is told mostly from the wife's point of view, with some journeys into what the guys are up to (it's mostly frat house type male bonding and tamed down machismo, e.g. Who plays the best tennis, who has the most audacious watch).
Yes, it gets a little soap opera / telenovela like. But like a soap, you want to know more and more about each situation, especially as the pathologies and desperation -- lots of money issues -- are slowly revealed. We also get to see some of the social, racial problems of Mexico in an Upstairs Downstairs sort of way. In some ways their bubble community resembles upper middle class America circa 1975.
One disappointment: the American English dubbing / translation. With the guys it is non stop "bro" and "dude." Curious what that is in Mexican Spanish. It is seriously annoying. Not sure middle aged, middle class men speak like that -- in any language.
All in all a fun and unexpected binge watch. Trashy yes, but good fun. Do not look for seriousness here.
The setting: A wealthy gated community somewhere in central Mexico (it was shot in Huixquilucan, between Toluca and Mexico City). The plot focuses on five couples and their families. Each have their secrets, problems and tensions within their marriages.
--There is the failing politician from a corrupt family and his always pregnant wife and their seven kids.
--A entrepreneur of some sort from Spain, and his wife. He is domineering, and physically abusive to her.
--An executive of a Dutch/Japanese firm who runs their Mexico business, and his socially ambitious wife.
--A female real estate agent who has to peddle property in the gated community because her husband is a layabout and pothead and she has bigger ambitions for her school aged son.
--A highly successful plastic surgeon and his wife -- his creation -- who he constantly wants to remake.
Each episode focuses on one family and is told mostly from the wife's point of view, with some journeys into what the guys are up to (it's mostly frat house type male bonding and tamed down machismo, e.g. Who plays the best tennis, who has the most audacious watch).
Yes, it gets a little soap opera / telenovela like. But like a soap, you want to know more and more about each situation, especially as the pathologies and desperation -- lots of money issues -- are slowly revealed. We also get to see some of the social, racial problems of Mexico in an Upstairs Downstairs sort of way. In some ways their bubble community resembles upper middle class America circa 1975.
One disappointment: the American English dubbing / translation. With the guys it is non stop "bro" and "dude." Curious what that is in Mexican Spanish. It is seriously annoying. Not sure middle aged, middle class men speak like that -- in any language.
All in all a fun and unexpected binge watch. Trashy yes, but good fun. Do not look for seriousness here.
