Doomed tells the story of Leandro (Cauã Reymond, from Brazil Avenue), a sophisticated sommelier and a real Don Juan. After returning to his native city, he has a romance with Celeste (Dira Paes), who is married to a powerful businessman. Due to his insatiable appetite for women, he also becomes involved with Isabel (Patrícia Pillar), the wife of his boss, Jaime (Murilo Benício). For Leandro, seducing women is just a game until he is taken by surprise upon falling in love with Antônia (Isis Valverde), the couple's daughter. This young girl makes him question his convictions and together, they are thrown into a thrilling story of desire, jealousy and revenge. Antônia's mother is discreet and totally devoted to her family. Torn between her daughter's and her husband's desires, she tries, unsuccessfully, to ease the bitter feelings between the two. Celeste, on the other hand, is a passionate and seductive woman who hides her affair with the sommelier from everyone. When Leandro's boss ...
The original text, entitled "The Nova St. Girl Who Was Walled-Off," which served as an argument, would probably have provided a much superior material. It was written by Carneiro Vilela (1846-1913) of northeastern Brazil. Like Edgar Allan Poe's "The cask of Amontillado," it also contains a character called Fortunato. And alike Poe's Fortunato, who was lured into an underground crypt and bricked alive, the protagonist, a bourgeois young impregnated by her boyfriend is incarcerated in her own room at the behest of her father, the wealthy merchant Jaime, in order to cover up the shame and preserve the family honor. The story is still shrouded in mystery . In real life, the crime was supposedly committed in a loft sited on #200 Rua Nova (Nova St.) in Recife. Vilela's work was published, duly serialized, from 1909 to 1912 , then converted into a novel. Is this a true case, or a product from the imagination of an indefatigable writer? Anyhow the novel vividly portrayed the society of late nineteenth century , while the 2014 TV series chose to focus on a story of passion , sex , betrayal and vengeance, based on the old stereotypes of narrow-minded, sexist Colonels for whom the paramount honor of the mighty had to be washed with blood and everything should be solved through oppression or bullets, with the aid of thugs. I'll praise the photography by Walter Carvalho , full of inclined shots and super close-ups, revealing stunning backdrops that present the backwoods of Northeast Brazil's wine region. I'll reject, however, the commercial appeal of erotic scenes which abuse of slow motion and redundant flashback fillers without any other purpose than, say, in-caliente, ad- nauseam repetition.