Literature / The Fragility of Bodies

The Fragility of Bodies (La fragilidad de los cuerpos) is an Argentinian crime/mystery Thriller by Argentinian author Sergio Olguín. It was released in 2007 and received an English translation by Miranda France in 2019.

In 2017, it received a Spanish-language live-action adaptation in the form of an 8-episode Mini Series, as a joint production by Pol-ka Producciones, eltrece, Cablevision and TNT.

The story stars Verónica Rosenthal (Eva De Dominici), a journalist investigating the suicide of a train machinist. Which the help of her lawyer friend Federico (Juan Gil Navarro) and train machinist Lucio (Germán Palacios) she begins to uncover something much sinister is happening on the train tracks of Buenos Aires.

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This work provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: The deputy editor of Verónica's maganize, Alex Vilna, has a huge crush on her and makes constant passes at her, despite her disliking him. In the books, she finds him too pompous and vain while in the Mini Series he's much older than her.
• Action Survivor: Verónica is just a normal middle-aged woman, yet she manages to survive several attempts on her life by trained cartel killers, such as saving Rafa from assassins via some crazy maneuvers with her car, and in the end when she outsmarts Rivero when he comes to her apartment to kill her.
• Adaptation Expansion: The Mini Series spends far more time with other characters, such as Rafa, El Peque, Dientes, Rivero, and Juan Garcia, who only had the occasional brief POV segment.
• Adapted Out: Marcelo, the doorman to Verónica's building, is a minor character in the book that is absent in the Mini Series.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Verónica is referred to as Vero by some of her close friends and family.
  • Verónica calls her editor and boss Patricia by the nickname "Pato". She also refers to Federico as "Fedo".
  • Peque and Dientes are both Only Known by Their Nickname, with only their families using their real names (Cristian and Kevin). Peque got his due to being small as a child (Peque is short for pequeño, which is small in Spanish) while Dientes was named after his odd teeth (Dientes means teeth in Spanish).
• Age-Gap Romance: Played With. Verónica is thirty years old while Lucio is in his only in his late thirties, but she looks younger for her age while he looks considerably older for his age. This is especially notable in the Mini Series, where Lucio is grizzled and already has a lot of white hair.
• Amoral Attorney: Mini Series-only. Near the end of the story, Verónica's father is revealed to be Juan Garcia's attorney who previously defended him on many corruption charges and he uses his connection to him to force them to make a deal.
• Angry Guard Dog: One guards a store Peque and Dientes want to steal, and they attempt poisoning it to get rid of it, showing how desperate they are for cash. The Mini Series actually makes it a Black Comedy Running Gag since they constantly fail to kill the dog via poison.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The Cartel's way of dealing with the families of the Game of Chicken's children. Their thugs pay the family a visit, offering hush money and the promise to ruin their lives if they ever speak anything. Given they're all impoverished families with little recourse, this is very effective.
• Bad Boss: It becomes very clear to Verónica right at the start of the investigation that the railway company treats its employers as expendable, wanting them to quickly come back to work even after they suffered the trauma of running over suicidal people and even children. And that's before she finds out that many of the higher-ups get bribed by The Cartel to let them run their Blood Sport schemes.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: One of the meetings Juan Garcia has with his underlings has them playing pool in a bar.
• The Bad Guys Win: The Mini Series makes the Big Bad comes out more victorious, despite events playing out similarly. In the book, Verónica corners Juan Garcia by herself, tracking him to his hideout and fearlessly going there to force a deal on him, making him give up his underlings on the Game of Chicken scheme in order to save himself. The Mini Series has Garcia be the one ordering her to come to his hideout, and he's also the one who offers the deal to her, and when she initially refuses, her Amoral Attorney father forces her to take it. In the book, there's also a Hope Spot, with Verónica passing on the info she has on Garcia to another fellow Intrepid Reporter, meaning he might face justice one day, even if she's not the one who catches him. Meanwhile, the last we see of Garcia in the Mini Series is him casually talking about starting another Blood Sports operation, with the implication he might still use children for them too.
• Benevolent Boss: In the book, Verónica's editor Pato is a benevolent figure who greatly assists Verónica in her investigations. Downplayed in the novel, where Pato simply attempts to look out for Verónica, but the magazine's higher-ups see Verónica as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer that pressures her on giving up on the railway gaze when it starts taking too long.
• Betty and Veronica: The Federico/Verónica/Lucio Love Triangle. Federico is the Betty, an overall Nice Guy and longtime friend of Verónica's family who supports her Intrepid Reporter career, while Lucio is a shady train machinist whom Verónica has just met and has a hurricane romance with, despite the fact he's a married man with a family.
• Big Bad: Juan Garcia The Don of The Cartel is the main antagonist of the story. He's a corrupt businessman and politician that controls all sorts of criminal schemes all over Argentina, such as smuggling operations and illegal gambling rings. The railway Game of Chicken's scheme that Verónica investigates is just one of his many businesses.
• Bittersweet Ending: Verónica manages to put an end to the railway Game of Chicken, arresting many of the ringleaders and implicating several others involved. But she had to let go of Big Baf Juan Garcia, Lucio and other people still ended up dying during the process. The Mini Series also has Verónica discovering her father is a major Amoral Attorney, which has seriously damaged their relationship.
• Blood Sport: Garcia's cartel apparently makes several of these, with the railway Game of Chicken that puts child lives at the risk of being run over by trains being just one of many.
• Brains and Bondage: The book has the intellectual Verónica be into bondage.
• Broken Pedestal: In the Mini Series Verónica and Federico become shocked to learn her father is an Amoral Attorney who worked for Garcia in the past.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Verónica is treated as one in the Mini Series, which her bosses find her Intrepid Reporter that is always Going for the Big Scoop to be more trouble than it's worth, and they encourage (or demand) her to work on things more mundane news stories.
• The Cartel: The main antagonists of the story are a cartel group in Buenos Aires that is behind the Game of Chicken competition that is getting children killed on train tracks. They also deal in all the crimes one comes to expect from cartels, such as drug trafficking, intimidation, blackmail, assassination, and kidnapping.
• Catapult Nightmare: Lucio is shown waking up scared in this manner whenever he has nightmares about the people he ran over with his train over the years.
• Cigarette of Anxiety:
  • Verónica often resorts to smoking more when she gets anxious.
  • In the Mini Series, her father also smokes for the first time since the death of his wife when he has to force Verónica into accepting Gracia's deal.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Rafael's store owner friend and his wife and brutally tortured and killed by The Cartel so they can find out Rafael's location.
• Commitment Issues: Verónica doesn't dwell much on it, but it's fairly obvious she has issues dealing with having an actually serious relationship.
• Comically Small Bribe: Played for Drama. The money Rivero offers the Game of Chicken kids is comically small, but it feels like a lot to them, since they're often miserably poor children from shantytowns.
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: Due to her busy schedule, Verónica has to resort to this when picking a gift for her niece, but something comes up that prevents her from even going to the convenience store, so her gift ends up being just cash instead. Her sister isn't amused.
• Cool Aunt: Verónica is mentioned by her sisters to be the favorite aunt of their kids, and are annoyed when Verónica starts neglecting them due to her work.
• Corruption of a Minor: Rivero's coaching methods always try to bring out the worst in kids, with him encouraging them to beat each other up and shaming them if they hesitate. This is all part of his plan to get them ready for the Game of Chicken competition.
• Crusading Lawyer: Federico is a lawyer who fully supports Verónica's work as an Intrepid Reporter, doing constant favors for her not only due to their romantic connection, but over a mutual desire to see justice done.
• Da Editor: Verónica's boss and editor Pato is demanding and hard to please, but she also gives good advice and acts reasonably to Verónica. Played more straight in the Mini Series where Verónica is seen as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer and gets constant pressure to finish the story from Pato and the other editors.
• Dangerous Workplace: The Buenos Aires train tracks are in a bad shape, with many of the security measures meant to ensure people don't walk into the tracks not working or not existing. This is a big part of why the Game of Chicken competition started happening there.
• Death of a Child: Several children have died getting hit by the train during the Game of Chicken competition.
• Deadly Game: Garcia and his cartel specialize in this, proving bizarre "games" where the participants are the impoverished citizens of the slums, with rich and powerful people placing bets on which will survive.
• Demoted to Extra: In the book, Verónica has several co-workers with distinctive personalities that she interacts and talks about on occasion. In the show, only her editors get any screen time and very little characterization.
• Dirty Cop: The Argentine police has never found out or done anything about the Game of Chicken competition because they're all paid to look the other way. When Rafa finds out about the competition and attempts to report it to the police, they do nothing except inform Garcia's men, who track down Rafa to kill him because He Knows Too Much.
• Disappeared Dad: Both Peque and Dientes parents are absent from their lives. El Peque's father apparently walked out on them while Diente's father was killed for an unknown reason by a local gang.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Federico is genuinely in love with Verónica and wants to have a stable and lasting relationship, but her Commitment Issues get in the way, as she's unwilling to settle down with a single man.
• The Don: Juan Garcia is the ruthless head of The Cartel that Verónica is investigating. He used to be a corrupt mayor but ended up being exposed, and while he managed to get away with a slap on the wrist, his political career still went under, and he's been downgraded to being a crime boss.
• Driven to Suicide: The plot is kicked off by the suicide of Carranza, a train machinist who commits suicide due to the guilt he feels over running over people for years during the job. In particular, his last victim was one of the children who took part in the Game of Chicken and his suicide note hinting at it is what sets Verónica on track to dismantle the operation.
• Ethical Slut: Verónica is an Intrepid Reporter of strong moral character and ethics, but is also very promiscuous and has a borderline hedonistic sexual appetite, to the point she often browses the internet for scandalous and kinky sex stories and sometimes even writes them herself. She's also perfectly willing to sleep with Lucio even though she knows he's a married man with two kids.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The corrupt union boss is horrified when Juan Garcia orders the last two child competitors to be killed, despite having been fine with the Game of Chicken competition beforehand, since he saw some kids dying as accidents, and feels actively killing them is too much.
• Every Man Has His Price: What allowed Juan Garcia's Blood Sport criminal empire to exist is that it mostly revolves around exploiting poor people, who are cheap to bribe.
• Evil Duo: In the Mini Series, The Cartel always sends the same two henchmen to deal with the nastier jobs (In the book they're described as a larger group), such as assassination and intimidation. When they attempt to assassinate Rafa and Verónica, one gets killed by Lucio while the other is left paralyzed after getting run over by Verónica's car. Garcia later laments their loss, since he says "good help is hard to find".
• Family Versus Career: Verónica starts missing family events when she starts to become more invested in her case, to her family's disapproval and annoyance.
• Film the Hand: In the Mini Series. Lucio blocks the camera on his cabin with a cloth when Verónica sneaks into it to talk to him. It only delays the bad guys finding out about her talking to Lucio though.
• Friends with Benefits: Verónica and Federico seem to have this kind of arrangement in the Mini Series. In the books, they had a brief romance, before Verónica broke things off.
• Game of Chicken: The Blood Sport that Rivero is in charge of for The Cartel. Rivero picks two "brave" 10~ year old boys from the soccer club and offers them cheap cash in order to participate. He drives them to the train station at night, and orders them to stand on the track and to wait until the last possible moment before jumping out of the way of the incoming train, with wealthy people betting on the winner. And sometimes, they wait too long.
• A God Am I: Downplayed. Garcia doesn't truly believe this, but when he puts his number on Verónica's, he names the number "God", illustrating his incredible arrogance.
• Going for the Big Scoop: Verónica often becomes so invested in her stories that she starts to deprioritize her personal life. Even getting mixed up with a dangerous mob boss and his cartel doesn't stop her from pursuing her story, no matter how hard they try to intimidate her.
• Good Bad Girl: Verónica shamelessly enjoys her borderline hedonistic lifestyle of drinking, smoking, and casual sex but she's also a Nice Girl with a strong moral character, who works as an Intrepid Reporter due to her strong sense of justice.
• Good Shepherd: One of Verónica's allies in her quest to expose the Game of Chicken is Father Pedro, the priest of a poor community where many kids keep "disappearing". He even breaks some of his vows when helping her, but he feels it's for the greater good.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The opening scene of the Mini Series has Carranzo performing suicide by shooting himself in the head on top of a building, with his head being just out of frame when he pulls the trigger.
• The Heavy: Rivero, the soccer club's coach that personally picks and trains the kids to be part of the Game of Chicken is the antagonist with the most presence and screentime, as we constantly see him via El Peque and Rafa's POV segments. In the Mini Series, he also has a final climactic confrontation with Verónica after her deal with Juan Garcia, when he invades her apartment to kill her for Revenge for her role in "ruining his life", but she manages to fight him off and he gets arrested.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Verónica is often mentioned to be gorgeous by both the narration and other male characters, even being a Lust Object for a couple.
• He Knows Too Much: The Cartel tends to do this to people who get too close to uncovering their Blood Sport. They usually just bribe people, which works well in the poorer areas of town. But people who are determined to expose the truth, such as Rafa and Verónica, are marked for death.
• Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: In the book, Verónica is painfully aware that she's just turned 30 and while she's still a Head-Turning Beauty, can see the signs in her body that her youthful looks and health are starting to vanish.
• Hopeless Suitor: Verónica's doorman Marcelo has a massive crush on her, but she's completely dismissive of it.
• Human Traffickers: Rivero used to be a human trafficker for Garcia before he took charge of the Buenos Aires Game of Chicken. It's not relevant to the story, other than to enforce Rivero's status as a Hate Sink.
• I Have Your Wife: Garcia's cartel thugs attempt to get their hands on Rafa's daughter after they failed to kill him, in order to invoke this, but Verónica manages to get there first and saves her Just in Time.
• Intimate Telecommunications: Verónica and Lucio have "phone sex" shortly after they begin their affair.
• Intrepid Reporter: The Protagonist Verónica became a reporter due to her distaste for injustice and desire to expose corruption to the world, and is willing to go to great lengths to pursue these goals, even if it endangers herself. In te story, this materializes as her going up against The Cartel, and persevering in exposing their schemes despite multiple assassination attempts.
• Iron Lady: Verónica is a fearless Intrepid Reporter who doesn't show fear even talking to the mob boss who ordered countless hits on her and her friends.
• It's All My Fault
  • The train machinists feel incredible guilt over the people they run over in the trains, despite the fact they're not at fault since they're incapable of actually stopping the train in time.
  • In the Mini Series Rafael is plagued by great guilt once he finds out that the kids he recruited to the soccer club actually ended up in the railway Game of Chicken. He also feels responsible when The Cartel's thugs that go after him end up going after his friend and killing him to get information on Rafa.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Big Bad Juan Garcia decides to put a stop to the Game of Chicken competition after his Evil Duo fails to assassinate Verónica, and he offers her a deal, giving up everyone below him in the organization, while he gets away. After much angst, she reluctantly accepts.
• The Lad-ette: Downplayed in regards to Verónica. While she exhibits many traits often associated with men, such as being a heaver smoker/drinker, enjoying casual sex and being a late sleeper, she still maintains a feminine personality. Lucio is often surprised at how gracious she manages to look even while doing things he never associates women doing.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Part of what's so horrifying about the train accidents and suicides is that the people that get run over are often reduced to pieces, especially the children. This is convenient for The Cartel running the Game of Chicken, since any child that dies is reduced to a state where they can't be recognized.
• Lust Object: Verónica is this to many of the male characters, whenever they get a POV segment of a man thinking about her, they're also often lusting or fantasizing about her. This includes the doorman to her building and even a priest.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Juan Garcia is often seen wearing expensive suits and drinking expensive drinks while relaxing in his extravagant restaurant.
• Missing Mom: Verónica's mother passed away a few years before the start of the story, but her death caused a great impact on the family dynamic since Verónica's mother was The Heart that kept the family united.
• The Mistress: Verónica becomes Lucio's lover knowing full well he's married with children and has no intention of leaving them, and has no desire for him to leave them herself.
• The Modest Orgasm: In the Mini Series, we only have close-ups of Verónica or Lucio's faces as they quietly reach orgasm.
• Must Have Nicotine: Verónica is already a heavy smoker due to habit, but the stress of working on the train story makes her smoke even more.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the Mini Series, Rafa is horrified when he discovers the kids he has been recruiting for the soccer club were actually for the Game of Chicken competition.
• Near-Death Experience: Most kids who take part in the Game of Chicken go through one, as the whole point of the game is to jump out of the way of the train at the last second. El Peque becomes traumatized on his second Game of Chicken, when not only does the train barely miss him, but it kills the boy he was competing against.
• Nice to the Waiter: Verónica treats the doorman at her building very well, to the point he often does favors to her. Although we also learn in his brief POV segment that he does favors to her hoping he'll get to sleep with her someday.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Rivero uses this tactic while coaching kids, calling them cowards or sissies whenever they hesitate to do what he asks.
• No OSHA Compliance: The Buenos Aires train tracks are very unsafe due to the company's neglect, with many security cameras or basic safety features missing, which leads to many accidents. This is also what allows the Game of Chicken to take place in them, as the lack of cameras and security makes it very easy for criminals to set the whole thing up.
• Non-Idle Rich: Verónica's family has enough money that she could easily spend her life as an Idle Rich, but she decides to be her own woman and have her own career.
• Not Staying for Breakfast: Played With, Verónica kicks out her casual lovers from her room apartment after they're done having sex.
• Odd Couple: Privileged Intrepid Reporter Verónica and working-class train conductor Lucio make quite an unusual pairing.
• Off the Record: Juan Garcia makes sure to take Verónica's cell phone for their one-on-one meetings.
• Oh, Crap!: Juan Garcia is a very private man who enjoys running his criminal organization from the shadows, so when he learns that Verónica has managed to find out who he is he becomes visibly distressed.
• Pædo Hunt: The dirt Juan Garcia gives on the corrupt union boss for the train workers involves him making out with several underage girls.
• Parental Neglect: Because Peque and Dientes both have Struggling Single Mothers who don't have time to pay attention to them, allowing the kids to get involved in all sorts of schemes.
• Police Are Useless: As Federico says, a sad reality of Argentine police is that even if they weren't bribed to look the other way, they don't have the resources or time to put on the mysterious deaths and disappearances of poor kids who die in the train tracks.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Juan Garcia wants to stop the Game of Chicken competition during the time Verónica starts snooping to avoid the attention, but his clients keep insisting thus forcing his hand. It's implied that part of of the reason he gave Verónica info on them as part of their deal was to punish them.
• Predatory Business: Rivero's soccer is actually just a front for the Game of Chicken competition, with him picking out the "bravest" kids to take part in the Blood Sport.
• Recovered Addict: Rafael used to be The Alcoholic and a cocaine addict, which led to his wife divorcing him. By the time we met him, he's recovered but struggled constantly with the temptation to drink. The Mini Series, when he learns about the Game of Chicken competition and the part he unwittingly played on it, it almost causes him to relapse into a fit of Drowning My Sorrows.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Federico is a rich and successful lawyer while Lucio is a working-class train conductor.
• Sex Goddess: Verónica is described as an incredibly skilled lover, and she explains she actually researches for sexual techniques, bragging to Lucio she's an expert in Geisha lovemaking arts.
• Shame If Something Happened: The Cartel's method of dealing with people that find out about the Game of Chicken competition is to offer them some hush money, along with explicit threats of the terrible things they'd do to their loved ones if they blad about the Game of Chicken to anyone.
• Shipper on Deck: Federico is an old friend of Verónica's family and works closely with her father, and her entire family pushes the two to be together.
• Shoulders-Up Nudity: During sex scenes, Verónica's nudity is mostly depicted from the shoulders up, with the occasional Toplessness from the Back and Sideboob shots to assure the audience she's really naked.
• The Show of the Books: The book was released in 2007 and received a live-action Spanish-language Mini Series in 2017.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: Verónica's smoking habit is criticized by POV character's internal's thoughts. They don't really have the guts the tell it to her face.
• Spoiled Sweet: Verónica has lived a privileged life in a country struck by poverty and inequality, but that doesn't stop her from being a woman of strong character who puts her life on the line
• Struggling Single Mother: Peque and Dientes both have Disappeared Dads, so they're both raised by their mothers, who are too busy working to pay much attention to them, leading to them getting involved in the plot.
• Switching P.O.V.: Most of the story is told from Verónica's point of view, but there are occasional segments where we see the point of view of other characters, such as El Peque, Lucio, and Rafa.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Averted. While protagonists Verónica and Lucio are sympathetic, the fact they're cheating on his wife in their affair is still portrayed as immoral and Lucios explicitly thinks that his wife has done nothing to deserve his infidelity. The only thing that gives them a smidge of sympathy is the fact they both feel great guilt about it.
• Tamer and Chaster: While the Mini Series adaptation still has its fair share of sex scenes, they're tastefully shot and contain no actual nudity. The book goes into far more detail on Verónica's and Lucio's sex life, and due to the First Person Narration we often get to read the lustful thoughts they think about each other.
• There Are No Therapists: Played With. The train machinists that get traumatized by the accidents and deaths are assigned to a therapist by the railway company, but Lucio describes the therapist as completely useless, who only offers them medication and gives them a couple of days off before assigning them as being fit to go back to work.
• Those Two Guys: Peque and Dientes are a child duo who are almost always seen together, and their interactions are frequently comical in nature.
• Useless Security Camera: Most of the security cameras on the Buenos Aires train station don't work, which is what allows the Game of Chicken to happen there.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live
  • Rivero shows up at El Peque's home to intimidate the boy to keep quiet about the competitions.
  • The Cartel thugs warn Lucio they know where he and his family live, as a threat to stop him from helping Verónica.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Mini Series only but Justified. Juan Garcia's underlings are puzzled by his reluctance to simply order Verónica to be killed when her investigations start to get too close to him, but he says her important lawyer father could cause killing her to become too complicated. It's later revealed that Verónica's father isn't just an important attorney but has actually worked as Garcia's Amoral Attorney before, and Garcia doesn't want to antagonize someone who has dirt on him.
• Would Hit a Girl: In the Mini Series, our first impression of The Cartel's Evil Duo henchmen is of them violently evicting a middle-aged woman from her former home. They're also the ones who got assigned to assassinate Verónica.
• Would Hurt a Child: Not only is the entire railway Game of Chicken about putting kids in incredible danger to gamble on their lives, but Juan Garcia orders his henchmen to kill the two kids in the final game just so they can tie in loose ends.

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