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All in la familia!
A week in the life of "La Vida en el Espejo," one of the hottest prime-time telenovelas.
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By Andrés Martínez
Feb. 28, 2000 | I spent a week watching the Telemundo telenovela "La Vida en el Espejo" recently. This is what I saw:
Monday
Fifty-five-year-old Santiago Roman throws a barbecue for family and friends, the first time he has entertained since his wife, Isabel, left the house.
Paula, the nubile daughter of friends, is back from a year in boarding school in Boston and tells Eugenio, Santiago's dopey youngest son, that the place was annoying, with teachers always bugging you to be "number one" (she says that in English) and friends nagging you to lose your virginity.
Julio, Santiago's debonair single friend and employer, says women "are like squash balls: The harder you hit them, the faster they come back."
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Santiago mulls over how feminine his bedroom is. "I feel like Cinderella," he says, and starts kicking around pink pillows. Just then Isabel, his workaholic wife who left him for her young assistant, calls to ask about the kids. "You ruined my life," Santiago moans, then hangs up. He resumes kicking pink pillows.
Next day Santiago meets Gabriela, a young disc jockey, for lunch at a snooty French restaurant. He asks her if she has ever been to France. (She hasn't.) He brags about being there for the 1998 World Cup and babbles on about the beauty of castles on the Loire. "Maybe that's why they call dreams castles in the air," Gabriela says dreamily. "Someday you'll live out your dream and see France yourself," Santiago says, in what industry insiders call a foreshadowing. Gabriela asks that they leave and go to an informal taco place. Why? "Because it's too formal here to yell out that I love you," Gaby says. "Well, I'll whisper it back: I love you too."
Tuesday
Gaby and Santiago are going at it at the taco joint, squeezing lime juice onto their tacos de carnitas. Santiago: "I can't believe I could fall in love with a woman who could be my ..." She stops him.
Isabel meets her children for the first time since they learned of her infidelity. Eugenio doesn't want to listen and calls her a whore. She tells them that she's fallen in love, that it's "a beautiful feeling at the wrong moment."
When Eugenio hears the man is her young assistant, he says it's a good thing he has no friends in school, because she would have screwed them, too. Ouch.
Gaby and Sebastian are still giddy, strolling about town, though for some reason he's explaining to her that you can't mix red and white wines.
At the family's public-relations firm, Isabel asks Eduardo if what Santiago wants for his 35 percent share of the firm is reasonable. Guess what he says?
Wednesday
Isabel complains to a friend that her thing with Eduardo isn't like it used to be. "All we ever talk about now are maids."
Isabel and Santiago's oldest child, 23-year-old Mauricio, is getting a lot of grief from his (hot!) girlfriend of two years, who wants to have sex. He says he respects her too much. She's not impressed: "I'm beginning to think you don't know how, or perhaps have a hormonal illness." She leaves in a huff.
Corrupted from her year in Boston, nubile Paula kisses Eugenio, who freaks out.
Over the phone, Santiago tells Gaby, "I could be wrong in wanting to fly, but I love you." She: "Stop, please, I need to breathe." They each crouch on the floor, breathing hard, blowing kisses into phone. First instance of phone sex on Spanish-language TV? Close, but no cigar.
In a steam room, friends ask Santiago how serious this thing is with the babe. He: "Gabriela is to me the only person in color in an otherwise black-and-white film." His friends are clearly worried.
Mauricio is at his family's vacation home with his buddy Jim, who lives in California (he went to Stanford), but misses Mexico. Mauricio: "Well, come back." Jim: "I wouldn't have same freedom." Huh? Jim: "Well, you know there is less freedom for homosexuals here in Mexico." Mauricio, who is having a rough episode, looks at his friend as if he were from Mars. Jim: "You are too, aren't you?" Mauricio's answer is to run away.
 Next page | Paula kisses Eugenio again
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