This switching-places comedy warmly and trenchantly sends up the telenovela genre’s swooning melodrama and oversexed-but-prudish contradictions.
60
Village VoiceChuck Wilson
Village VoiceChuck Wilson
Ganem and her talented co-stars work hard, but Riedel's pacing is always a beat or two behind their mad energy, making for a film that's enormously appealing, but not quite addicting.
Ganem has sufficient verve and appeal to sustain interest in both of her characters, and the sporadic tweaking of telenovelas and the fans who love them is often quite clever.
Over-the-top, but not far enough over the top to fully pay off. But Ganem makes the title character, and her soapy doppelganger, enough of a hoot to make it worth staying through the credits.
The major failing of Ana Maria In Novela Land is its unevenness. The comedy is never all that funny, and some scenes fall noticeably flat, either because the cast isn’t strong enough, or because the production as a whole lacks polish.