In Peru, soaps or telenovelas are incredibly popular. El destino no tiene favorites is a clever, humorous and surprisingly elegant pastiche on these soaps, and also a blueprint of Peruvian society, where there is still a major difference between the social classes. That difference is primarily based on blood (European as opposed to the original Indian population) and transgressing against the invisible boundary is an important soap theme: a poor servant girl always marries her rich white boss. At first sight, things are the same in El destino no tiene favorites, the soap in the film.Ana is a rich bored housewife. When her husband rents the garden out to a soap film crew and goes away on a business trip, this is a welcome change for Ana in her predictable life. From her window, she follows the shooting and soon becomes just as engrossed in the soap as her two maids. Ana is accidentally mistaken for an actress and is cast for a role, to the great dismay of the other actresses and Ana’s maids. The set is continually dominated by gossiping, intrigues and blackmail. The boundary between the two worlds – Ana’s life and that of the soap – becomes increasingly vague. The styles also start to mingle in a cinematographic sense and it becomes increasingly difficult to tell one thing from the other…
