For those who enjoy a soap opera, Brazil is fertile ground, as the overwhelming majority of general TV channels in the country transmit, on average, four soap operas daily. Invariably, much of this material eventually goes around the world, being bought and broadcast in other countries. One of the most permeable markets for Brazilian teledramaturgy is, of course, my country, due to its cultural and linguistic proximity. I watched "Laços de Família" twice: the first time it was broadcast in Portugal, around 2001, and most recently in 2015, when it was reprized.
The plot, which consists of a love triangle in which mother and daughter fall in love with the same man, was written by Manoel Carlos, who has the particular craze of calling "Helena" to almost all female heroines of the soap operas he writes. In fact, his soap operas share so many points in common that we even feel we are constantly watching the same story, chewed to look different without, however, being truly: the heroine always has the same name, almost everything happens in Rio de Janeiro, especially in the neighborhood of Leblon, almost always has a very rich family in the center of the plot and almost always there is some doctor having an important role. I definitely do not like his soap operas.
To make matters worse, this soap opera is so monotonous, so boring, so melodramatic and lame that it becomes totally uninteresting. I used to watch because there was nothing better going on TV, or because they were going to broadcast something good after the soap opera ended, so I kept hoping it would end, but it was a torment.
The plot, which consists of a love triangle in which mother and daughter fall in love with the same man, was written by Manoel Carlos, who has the particular craze of calling "Helena" to almost all female heroines of the soap operas he writes. In fact, his soap operas share so many points in common that we even feel we are constantly watching the same story, chewed to look different without, however, being truly: the heroine always has the same name, almost everything happens in Rio de Janeiro, especially in the neighborhood of Leblon, almost always has a very rich family in the center of the plot and almost always there is some doctor having an important role. I definitely do not like his soap operas.
To make matters worse, this soap opera is so monotonous, so boring, so melodramatic and lame that it becomes totally uninteresting. I used to watch because there was nothing better going on TV, or because they were going to broadcast something good after the soap opera ended, so I kept hoping it would end, but it was a torment.