Search - Mirada De Mujer, El Regreso on DVD

Not as good as the first, definitely not even close

C. Merced | Stamford, CT and sometimes in Puerto Rico | 07/26/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Whereas Mirada de Mujer was phenomenal, perfect, inspiring and exceptional...this is not. I was very excited when I heard there was going to be a sequel. We would finally get to know what happened to our beloved characters. Well, a different set of writers later we get...just a telenovela.

First, the plot. María Inés and Alejandro have not seen each other in six years. He lives with his son, Alex, and girlfriend in Spain. He is now a celebrated author and is coming back to México to receive an award for his novel "Un Largo adiós" (A long goodbye). María Inés is the owner of a nursery where she sells her plants. She is successful, happy, has a good relationship with her ex-husband, and is about to marry a good man, Jerónimo. Tragedy strikes, and an inconsolable María visits Paulina's grave and finds...Alejandro! Ah, the sparks fly, the love is there. And you will be at the edge of your seat screaming "kiss her you idiot!" And this all happens in the first few chapters! Well, it all goes downhill from there. The telenovela then proceeds to introduce all the children, now grown ups, of the main characters of the original "Mirada de Mujer". And boy, do they have problems! Drugs, abuse, violence, crime...you name it. The telenovela focuses on them and not on what we really want...María Inés and Alejandro. The few precious moments that we get them in our screen are priceless. The dialogue is not the same, but at least it is decent.

The acting of all these people (honestly, way too many characters), is pretty good and convincing. Save a few that were over the top, our favorite characters return and deliver a fine performance.

The story fell into the traps of the cheesiness and the overdone, over the top quality of most telenovelas. The story was not about María Inés and Alejandro, it was about the offsprings of María, Rosario, Consuelo, Paulina, etc.... The focus of the telenovela was another, it wanted to be flashy, have a mob-like story, fights, gun battles, police....Who cares?! We just wanted María Inés and Alejandro. And every time María and Alejandro are together, the fine performance of these actors convinces us beyond a doubt that this is one of the best love stories ever told. The chemistry is there, the fine performances are perfect and their characters are memorable. Why do they insist on keeping them apart?! María and Alejandro will have to fight against their families, circumstances, social rules and many other things if they want to finally be happy.

Regardless, I understand that edited versions will never be like watching the original version...but, do they have to cut so much? And cut key scenes? Well they do. At least it is not the editing crime that was done with the first Mirada de Mujer.
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