''You Are the One'' (,
lit.: "You Are My Life") is a 2006 Argentine
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...
television series, directed by Rodolfo Antúnez and Jorge Bechara and broadcast by
El Trece
Canal 13 (known by its current brand name El Trece, stylized as eltrece) is an Argentine free-to-air television network and the flagship station of the network of the same name, located in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. It is owned by ...
between 16 January 2006, and 9 January 2007. It is the second telenovela starring
Facundo Arana and
Natalia Oreiro
Natalia Marisa Oreiro Iglesias (; born 19 May 1977) is a Uruguayan actress, singer, songwriter, model, television presenter and fashion designer. She began her career in telenovelas but since 2008 she has switched to work primarily in films. O ...
as lead actors. The production included many location shootings, even during the
2006 FIFA World Cup
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...
in Germany, and many guest stars.
The plot follows the love story of MartÃn Quesada, an affluent businessman, and Esperanza Muñoz, a struggling female boxer who becomes his personal assistant. During its broadcast its overall rating averaged 26.9 points.
It was critically acclaimed, and won four
MartÃn Fierro Awards
The MartÃn Fierro Awards () are awards for Argentine radio and television, granted by APTRA, the Association of Argentine Television and Radio Journalists.
History
The awards were first given in 1959, limited to television. The next year, the a ...
and three
ClarÃn Awards. It was sold to more than 40 countries and had remakes in Mexico, Poland and Portugal.
Premise
The
telenovela
A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar Drama (film and television), drama genres around the w ...
was produced by
Pol-ka based on a premise by
Adrián Suar, which he formulated nearly six months before the show's premiere, after discussion with his partner Javier Blanco y Tevah. The premise involves a rich businessman and former Formula 1 racing driver who falls in love with a poor woman looking for work in his emporium. Suar requested scripts from Ernesto Korovsky and Sebastian Parrotta, the authors of ''Gasoleros'' and ''El sodero de mi vida'', and ''
Hombres de honor'' and ''
Padre Coraje'' respectively. The program was directed by Daniel De Felippo and Rodolfo Antúnez and produced by César Markus González. Most of the filming was done in the Pol-ka studio at the
Colegiales
Colegiales is a ''barrio'' or district in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is located between ''Alvarez Thomas av.'', ''Forest av.'', ''De los Incas av.'', ''Virrey del Pino st.'', ''Cabildo av.'', ''Jorge Newbery st.'', ''Crámer st.'' and ''Dorrego ...
neighborhood, using outdoor scenes unconventional for the genre.
The telenovela features
Facundo Arana and
Natalia Oreiro
Natalia Marisa Oreiro Iglesias (; born 19 May 1977) is a Uruguayan actress, singer, songwriter, model, television presenter and fashion designer. She began her career in telenovelas but since 2008 she has switched to work primarily in films. O ...
, who both appeared in the successful telenovela ''
Muñeca Brava'', as lead actors. The relationship between the two was more than professional; Facundo Arana had spontaneously been offered a guest appearance on the Russian series ''A ritmo de tango'' starring Oreiro.
Both actors agreed to appear in ''You Are the One'' on the condition that they worked together. As a result, the program design was decided only after both were confirmed in the leading roles.
Oreiro delayed filming proposals in Israel, Spain, and Uruguay, and the recording of her fourth music album to join the project.
As in ''Muñeca Brava'', the narrative of ''You Are the One'' revolves around a wealthy suitor and a poor woman, but unlike the former program it does not concentrate all the characters on a single narrative context. ''You Are the One'' organizes two contexts for both the rich and the poor, each one with its own characteristic locations and supporting characters.

Natalia Oreiro plays Esperanza Muñoz, a female boxer nicknamed "La Monita". Oreiro was inspired by the singer
Gilda to outline the character's personality.
The main location is a tenement in the neighborhood of
La Boca
La Boca (; "the Mouth", probably of the Matanza River) is a neighborhood (''Barrios of Buenos Aires, barrio'') of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.
Its location near the Port of Buenos Aires meant the neighbourhood became a melting pot of ...
where Esperanza lives with other characters. Her adoptive mother Nieves lives with Enrique "Quique" Ferreti, her natural son and Esperanza's childhood boyfriend. The writers drafted Quique's general outlines; Belloso defined most of his personality, including the relationship with Esperanzawhich is halfway between engagement and brotherhoodand his
Oedipus complex
In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex is a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire ...
with his mother. Esperanza trains as a boxer in a neighbourhood gymnasium with Quique, who has a wrestling
gimmick
A gimmick is a novel device or idea designed primarily to attract attention or increase appeal, often with little intrinsic value. When applied to retail marketing, it is a unique or quirky feature designed to make a product or service "stand out ...
as "Commander Ray". Other main characters in the series are actress Nilda Yadhur, known as "The Turk", and Paraguayan janitor Kimberly.
The character of MartÃn Quesada establishes a context of wealthy characters. Quesada is a businessman and Formula 1 driver, but is not presented as selfish or greedy as is the archetype of entrepreneurs in soap operas. The two locations associated with him are the Quesada Group office, presided over by him, and his home. The office has the characters of Quesada's chief adviser Alfredo Uribe, the secretary Mercedes, and his cousin Miguel Quesada, who serves as vice-president, and the lawyer Felix Perez Garmendia. His girlfriend Constanza Insua and his cousin Debbie are also included. MartÃn lives with his housekeeper Rosa, Rosa's grandson Tony, and three adopted orphan siblings, José, Laura, and Coqui. Another recurring site is the apartment of Miguel and Debbie, which would be also used as the house of Constanza or Garmendia if needed.
Plot
The story begins during a boxing match of Esperanza Muñoznicknamed "Monita"who has sustained a hand injury. Her manager, Enrique "Quique" Ferreti, is pressuring her to continue fighting, despite her pain. This injury complicates her economic situation, as her boxing provides the only income for her adoptive family, namely Quique and his mother, Maria de las Nieves. Nieves loves Esperanza like her own daughter, and pressures her to marry Quique. Her neighbor Kimberly suggests that Esperanza apply for a job in the Quesada Group, where she works as a janitress. The secretary Mercedes rejects Esperanza due to her violent manners and her dressing style. MartÃn Quesada, the president of the company, sees Esperanza crying in the street and hires her as his personal assistant.
MartÃn also meets three orphan siblings, José, Laura, and Coqui, who resisted being adopted by different families. He takes them to his home, and starts the legal proceedings to adopt them. MartÃn begins to like Esperanza, but his girlfriend Constanza, a cold, manipulative, and malicious woman, is wary of her. Esperanza does not tell MartÃn about her relations with Quique, instead pretending to be his sister. She also does not tell MartÃn that she is a boxer. Quique and Constanza begin their own relationship, unknown by most other characters. MartÃn breaks off his relationship with Esperanza when he sees her goodbye kiss with Quique, as he realizes that she was lying to him.
After the breakup with Esperanza, MartÃn resumes his romance with Constanza and eventually proposes marriage to her, in order to improve his chances of winning custody of the three siblings. The judge, who thought that Esperanza was a bad influence on the children, gives the adoption to Constanza instead of MartÃn, forcing him to marry her. Their marriage proves difficult; Constanza is demanding and possessive, and despises the adopted siblings, who hate her as well. MartÃn finally breaks with Constanza when she pretends to be blind to keep him with her. The children's custody battle delays the divorce, as MartÃn wants to keep them.
Due to the efforts of MartÃn's cousin Miguel, the unscrupulous lawyer "Falucho", and Constanza, Martin gradually loses his fortune, his business, and his house. He moves to the Conventillo and works as a taxi driver. Eventually, he recovers everything. A new character, Bárbara, temporarily joins the love triangle of MartÃn, Esperanza, and Constanza. Constanza gets pregnant by Quique and tries to pass off her son as MartÃn's, but fails. MartÃn finally marries Esperanza and has a family with her and the adopted children. Constanza moves in with Quique.
Production

The program was directed by Daniel De Felippo and Rodolfo Antúnez, and produced by César Markus González. Most of the filming occurred at the headquarters of Pol-ka in the Colegiales neighborhood. The telenovela took several risks in the creative and production fields, which were mostly successful.
The choice of MartÃn Quesada's background as a Formula 1 driver required an area with a large infrastructure to represent realistic races. For realism, plot scenes set outside Buenos Aires were actually filmed outside the city. There was significant press coverage during the location shooting in Germany, which took place during the
2006 FIFA World Cup
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...
. Facundo Arana and Natalia Oreiro played their characters in the
Veltins-Arena
Arena AufSchalke (), currently known as Veltins-Arena () for sponsorship reasons, is a retractable roof and pitch, football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It opened on 13 August 2001, as the new home ground for FC S ...
stadium during the Argentina-Serbia and Montenegro match. The result of the matcha 6–0 Argentine victorybenefited the filming, and the episode received 31.5 rating points. Location shooting also occurred in the tourist ski resort
Las Leñas
Las Leñas is a ski resort in Argentina, located in the western part of Mendoza Province.
It has reliable powder snow and climate for extreme and off-piste skiing. Construction of the ski center began January 1983, and by July 1983, it opened wit ...
in the
Andes
The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...
. A simulated aircraft crash that left the characters in a jungle was filmed at the
Pereyra Iraola park and an
Argentine Air Force
The Argentine Air Force (, or simply ''FAA'') is the air force of Argentina and one of three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic. In 2018, it had 13,837 military and 6,900 civilian personnel. FAA commander in chief is Brigadie ...
park in Morón.
To make her performances as a female boxer look realistic, Oreiro trained regularly with the renowned boxer
Marcela Acuña
Marcela Eliana Acuña (born 16 October 1976) is an Argentine professional boxer and part-time politician. She has held multiple super bantamweight world titles, including the IBF title since 2018; the WBA title from 2006 to 2008; the WBC titl ...
and her coach Ramón Chaparro.
They taught Oreiro how to stand and move in the ring and how to make various types of strokes, and she underwent cardiovascular and weight training. Acuña commented that Oreiro mastered the basic techniques more quickly than most beginner boxers. For this training, Oreiro temporarily gave up her
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...
diet. Another plot required the characters to fly a
Piper Tomahawk airplane and make an emergency landing. This was risky filming, and Arana and Oreiro did not use stunt doubles for it. The scene, which was the first of its kind in a daily Argentine telenovela, required four professional pilots, five special effects experts, and two additional aircraft used for filming the main aircraft from the outside. Arana was advised by the pilot Alberto Di Giorgio.
The program's opening theme is
Gilda's "Corazón Valiente" (), sung by Oreiro. It was produced by Toti Gimenez, widower and producer of the late Gilda. Oreiro is a fan of Gilda and chose this song as a homage to mark the 10th anniversary of her death.
She considered including it in her next music CD, but did not record anything afterwards.
Guest actors
The program featured several guest stars, who appeared in secondary or support roles in several episodes. Some guest starssuch as the singers
Chayanne,
Ricky Martin
Enrique Martin Morales (born December 24, 1971), known professionally as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and actor. He is known for his musical versatility, with his Ricky Martin albums discography, discography incorporati ...
and
Julieta Venegas
Julieta Venegas Percevault (; born 24 November 1970) is a Mexican singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, and producer who specializes in pop-rock-indie music in Spanish. She embarked on her musical journey by joining several bands, including the ...
played themselves within the fiction of the program. Venegas' song "Tu Nombre" is used as a background song in romantic settings. Marcela Acuña appeared twice, playing herself in a match against Oreiro's character. The appearance of actress
Leticia Brédice was nominated for the "best cameo in fiction" category at the
MartÃn Fierro Awards
The MartÃn Fierro Awards () are awards for Argentine radio and television, granted by APTRA, the Association of Argentine Television and Radio Journalists.
History
The awards were first given in 1959, limited to television. The next year, the a ...
; the prize was given to Nora Cárpena. Actress
Reina Reech delayed other projects to take part in the program.
Narration
The program expanded the usual conventions of the genre by using several types of
metafiction
Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own narrative structure in a way that inherently reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story ...
, referencing the actors themselves or the nature of the program.
An example within the plot is ''Sos mi muqui'', a
program within the program whose characters were based on the show's main characters. The actors' former characters are occasionally referenced in plots that place them in similar contexts than those of older fictions. MartÃn infiltrated a convent using a habit similar to the one Arana's character in ''
Padre Coraje'' wore, and Esperanza wore clothes similar to those Oreiro's character in ''
Muñeca Brava'' wore when they had to get into a slum.
Many actors played minor characters as well as their main roles. Pablo Cedrón played a Paraguayan brother of his character Falucho; both characters were involved in a love triangle with Kimberly. Carlos Belloso was cast as Quique's lost sister, dressed as a woman. Natalia Oreiro, who speaks Russian fluently, took the role of a Russian princess. Facundo Arana played a criminal, a role unlike MartÃn. Those scenes did not use special effects; each character was filmed separately without the two characters sharing the screen. The hero of the telenovela marries the villain, contrary to the genre's usual convention in which such a wedding is interrupted or canceled at the last moment.
Cast
Reception
Ratings
The program was first broadcast in January, a month of low television activity in Argentina because of the summer vacations. Nevertheless, it was highly successful. The competitor channel
Telefe
Telefe (acronym for Televisión Federal) is a television station located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The station is owned and operated by Paramount Global through Televisión Federal S.A. Telefe is also one of Argentina's six national televisio ...
aired the teen comedy ''
Alma Pirata'', which was rescheduled because of its low ratings, and replaced it with the second season of ''
Casados con Hijos''. Both programs had similar ratings until the end of ''Casados con Hijos'' in August. With an average rating of 26.8 points, ''Sos mi vida'' ended as the most watched Argentine television fiction so far;
it was displaced by the 2009, telenovela ''
Valientes'', which received 27.3 rating points.
In September 2007, a clip of the series posted on the first official telenovela channel on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
, by the production company Dori Media, attracted more viewers than any other YouTube clip that month.
Awards

The program was awarded the best TV comedy at the 2006 ceremony of the
MartÃn Fierro Awards
The MartÃn Fierro Awards () are awards for Argentine radio and television, granted by APTRA, the Association of Argentine Television and Radio Journalists.
History
The awards were first given in 1959, limited to television. The next year, the a ...
, prevailing over ''Casados con hijos'' and ''
¿Quién es el Jefe?''. Facundo Arana received the award for best lead actor in comedy, prevailing over Guillermo Francella,
Humberto Tortonese, and
Nicolás Vázquez. Natalia Oreiro won the award for the best lead actress in comedy, prevailing over Florencia Peña,
Nancy Duplaá,
Carmen Barbieri, and
Andrea Bonelli.
Alejandro Awada
Alejandro Awada (; December 7, 1961) is an Argentine character actor of Syrian and Lebanese descent. He has appeared in a great number of television series, programmes and onstage.
Personal life
Awada was born on 3 December 1961 in Villa Ball ...
,
Marcelo Mazzarello, and
Carlos Belloso received nominations for supporting comedy actor awards, which was won by Belloso. Similarly, three of five nominations for supporting comedy actress went to
Carla Peterson,
Mónica Ayos
Mónica Ayos is an Argentine actress.
Biography
Mónica Ayos Crámer was born in Buenos Aires. She is the daughter of the dancers VÃctor Ayos and Mónica Crámer. As her parents frequently left the country on dance tours, she lived with her gra ...
and
Claudia Fontán, but the award went to
Érika Rivas of ''Casados con hijos''. The program was unsuccessfully nominated for best theme song and best guest appearance for
Leticia Brédice.
Facundo Arana and Natalia Oreiro were nominated again at the 2007 MartÃn Fierro Awards. These nominations proved controversial because the program only lasted for a week in 2007, and had no second season, and both actors took a recess from work after it. Neither of them received an award for those nominations. Oreiro won the newly created award for the best dressed actress of the night, which is not part of the official awards.
At the
ClarÃn Awards ceremony in late 2006, the program was awarded for the best comedy, prevailing over ''
Casados con hijos'' and ''Alma Pirata''.
ElÃas Viñoles won the award for best actor, Ornella Fazio was nominated for best female actor; the award was given to MarÃa Abadi of ''
Montecristo
Montecristo, also Monte Cristo (, ) and formerly Oglasa (), is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea and part of the Tuscan Archipelago. Administratively it belongs to the comune, municipality of Portoferraio in the province of Livorno, Italy. The isl ...
''. Unlike the MartÃn Fierro, the ClarÃn awards do not distinguish between lead and supporting actors. Belloso was awarded as best comedy actor; Oreiro was nominated and the award was given to Érika Rivas.
Critical reception
The ''
ClarÃn'' newspaper attributes the success of the program to the actors' performances, the subplots, production initiatives, and the original treatment of stories.
The work of the supporting cast was also praised, including Carla Peterson, Fabiana Garcia Lago, and Marcelo Mazzarello. The newspaper ''
La Nación
''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''ClarÃn (Argentine newspaper), ClarÃn''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...
'' praised the show's mix of sitcom humor and telenovela drama, and equated the dramatic episodes to the works of renowned telenovela authors
Abel Santa Cruz,
Alberto Migré, and Delia Fiallo.
The program was criticized for the length of timenearly three monthsbefore the lead couple's first kiss. ClarÃn also criticized a badly-performed striptease act by Facundo Arana. As Carlos Belloso could not go with Arana and Oreiro to the filming at the World Cup, he was filmed in the
Plaza San MartÃn, pretending that he was in Germany as well.
The program's scheduled broadcast time was 21:00, but the channel often delayed its broadcast by up to 40 minutes. This led to conflicts with other channels and COMFER, the institution that regulates Argentine television. The last episode lasted for half an hour and was followed by the premiere of the new telenovela ''
Son de Fierro''; La Nación said that the final episode should have lasted a full hour.
Airings and remakes
The program was initially aired in Argentina in 2006 on
El Trece
Canal 13 (known by its current brand name El Trece, stylized as eltrece) is an Argentine free-to-air television network and the flagship station of the network of the same name, located in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. It is owned by ...
at
prime time
Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
. Following the success of the initial run, El Trece and ''Volver'' reran the show. It is sold internationally by the
Dori Media Group under the English name "You Are The One" to more than 40 countries.
The concept of the program was sold as well, and some countries remade the telenovela with local actors. The Mexican version, ''
Un gancho al corazón'', starred
Danna GarcÃa,
Sebastián Rulli,
Laisha Wilkins, and
Raul Araiza. The characters were renamed, but GarcÃa's character retained the sobriquet "La Monita". The Polish version, ''
Prosto w serce'', starred
Anna Mucha, Filip Bobek, and
Małgorzata Socha
Małgorzata Socha (born 23 April 1980) is a Polish actress. Mostly known from TV series '' BrzydUla'', ''Na Wspólnej'' and '' Przyjaciółki''.
Personal life
She was born in Warsaw, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a ...
. The Portuguese version, ''
Deixa-me amar'', starred
Paulo Pires and Paula Lobo Antunes.
References
External links
*
Official site
Natalia Oreiro Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:You Are the One (Argentine TV series)
2006 telenovelas
2007 telenovelas
2006 Argentine television series debuts
2007 Argentine television series endings
Argentine comedy television series
Spanish-language telenovelas
Sports fiction
Pol-ka telenovelas
2000s Argentine television series
Television shows set in Buenos Aires