Mariana de la noche (2003–2004) User Reviews

Romantic and Sexy

[Venus-25 · 1 April 2004]

This romantic story, of a young woman who thinks she is cursed to "una vida sin amor", is riveting from the opening episode. The interesting and mysterious nighttime visuals are a good backdrop to the lush incidental music by Jorge Avendaño and the intensity of the acting, especially by the macho and very sexy Jorge Salinas as the leading man. The equally talented and highly versatile Cesar Evora is on board as a possessive father who will stop at nothing -- including murder -- to keep his daughter to himself. Atilio Montenegro is possibly Evora's most evil villain to date.

The supernatural elements to this novela are fascinatingly integrated into a standard novela story of love and revenge.

Noteworthy performances include Patti Navidad and Rene Strickler, Maria Rojo, and Sergio Acosta. Some of the other characters are over the top, such as Chachi and the mad Maria Lola, but the sane presence of Alma Muriel (normally a first-rate villain) balances out the dramatis personae. Highly recommended, especially if it makes its next appearance in late-night TV.

Edited to Add: The abridged DVD is a better job than the one of ABRAZAME MUY FUERTE. It lacks the Juan Gabriel song used for the credits, but contains the original incidental music. There are a few scenes missing that should not have been, but the story is largely coherent. Jorge Salinas' fans will be pleased.

awful

[miss_kittiez · 1/10 · 27 July 2006]

Marianna de la Noche is without a doubt the worst telenovela I have ever seen.

Despite a wonderful cast, the lead actress is terrible. She is too dreamy, too overdone, too WOODEN. Her acting is unbelievable. The really good actors, such as Cecar Avora (Atilio) or Patricia Reyes Spindola (Maria Lola) were completely overshadowed by Alejandra Barros's (Marianna)bad acting.

The plot was also completely unbelievable. The good guys were idiots, the bad guys were completely shallow and evil and half the time no one seemed to know what was going on. Serious mistakes were made in terms of believability, such as Ignacio's 'sworn enemy' and Marianna's amnesia. Also, everything anyone did seemed to revolve around Marianna. And am I the only one who noticed that none of the other Indians wore a FEATHER in their hair? This was just plain awful. There's no other word for it.

z

[clever-7 · 5/10 · 24 May 2006]

I watched it cause that was the only Latin American soap opera at the moment being transmitted in north America. It wasn't that good by Mexican standards but when you're desperate to watch something you'll watch about anything.

So here's how it goes, this beautiful and good girl (Mariana) has a very evil family (exclude her mother which is a nice woman) and falls in love at first sight with his dad (Atilio)'s archenemy (Ignacio) without of course, knowing he's her family enemy (he doesn't know either). Ignacio went to this little town where they live looking for revenge but he doesn't actually know who his enemy is....

It has very twisted parts, and it's kinda nice... ah let's add that Mariana's cousin (Marcia) is in love with Ignacio too and she's as evil as Atilio... so watch out.

Started out excellent, but turned out to be a disappointment

[dramaljdiva · 12 May 2005]

When "Mariana de la Noche" first started, it had everything to be a success: Mystery, suspense, great cast, great locations, excellent background music, and a beautiful love story. Each episode was simply excellent, and when the episode ended, I couldn't wait until the next one. This good quality production and exciting storyline went on for about 45 episodes or so... and after that, it was as if the whole story started falling apart. What happened? Well, first of all, they had to go and kill off the wonderful Engineer Montiel (Rafael Rojas). What was the purpose in getting rid of such a good character? Then, the whole story became relocated in some casino/hotel in Costa Esmeralda, which was pretty ridiculous. After that is where the story lines started getting ridiculous, like turning Marcia into a super serial killer villain, having Mariana become so naive, that when she found out that Atilio killed all of her past boyfriends, she decided to marry him anyway (and this was the man she grew up thinking was her father), and having nearly every character in the script become either dumb and naive or over-the-top. It's so disappointing to think that they took such a good show and ruined it, and all because they decided to drag it out.