Through My Window Across the Sea Review: A través de mi ventana 2 or A través del mar is the sequel to the 2022 Spanish steamy teen romance flick starring Julio Pena as Ares, Clara Galle as Raquel in the lead roles. Based on the novel by Ariana Godoy, the film has been direct by Marçal Forés, with its screenplay adaptation pitched in by Eduard Sola. It also sees the some familiar faces reprise their roles from the previous outing – Raquel’s best friends Daniela played by Natalia Azahara and Guillermo Lasheras as Yoshi, Ares’ brothers, Hugo Arbues as Apolo and Eric Masip as Artemis, and Emilia Lazo as Claudia, the Hidalgo household’s help and Artemis’ girlfriend in hiding.

Some new additions including Andrea Chaparro, Ivan Lapadula and Carla Tous also jump into the mess to complicate things further this time. The film has runtime of 111 minutes, and has been rated for adult audiences due to inclusion of nudity and sexual escapades.

Through My Window: Across the Sea Review Does Not Contain Spoilers

Through My Window Across the Sea Review: Discussion

Leading with its same cliche bad boy meets closeted novelist trope, the Through My Window Netflix complications first started off on a stalkerish note back in 2022, and then ended with the next door neighbours obsessed with each other climbing through each other’s windows and doing whatnot, all ending with a lustful climax and nothing more.

Coming back this summer for more of the same toxicity presumed to be love, Ares and Raquel try their best to make their long distance relationship work due to them being enrolled in colleges cities apart. At the same time, they also struggle to find their purpose in the newfound individual scenarios, which comes as no surprise especially since they’ve kissing up to their phones the whole year, without batting an eye at their textbooks.

However, soon, Ares physically breaks away from the distances and closes in back to home to reunite with Raquel for a summer full defined by a passionate getaway. Enter, new characters in the mix from eaters sides to mess up their ever so complicated love saga, leading their relationship to be dragged though the dirt.

So, my first thought after watching this movie was that this is the kind of content that Netflix cancels the good stuff for – emotionally unavailable bad boy who only gets roused by the one girl, with whom he seemingly shares an “emotional” connection, that somehow just reveals them to be vulnerable with each other through physical intimacy, and nothing else. That’s exactly what the movie begins with too – a montage of the couple fantasising about getting intimately frisky with each other in public, as if the whole world is invisible to them and vice versa.

The movie doesn’t do much to change things up and keeps up its hackneyed plot that we’ve seen a thousand times before. Yet, it gets visually interesting when the cinematically approach the long distance relationship scenario. The couple imagines themselves to be next to each other, only to be cut off in a glitchy disappearance, revealing how they’ve been separated by weak internet connections or network.

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Other than that, I can never seem to grasp the purpose of these movies. Except presenting themselves as Abercrombie advertisements half the time, and offering an unrealistic concept and ideal of what a relationship is supposed to be about and look like, these releases seem to be savouring their own shallow methods. The ultimate goal for them seems to be to put on an overly attractive cast on display for the looks of it, and never mind about the severely cringey dialogues and showcasing an unhealthy take on first loves that just revolve around people getting together in bed. And there it is, the classic guilty pleasure scheme as always, which only gets cringier.

The only thing that made the whole thing bearable was the friendships. Raquel’s best friend (who also had a crush on her last time, and is trying to move on) Yoshi openly introduced himself as the “third wheel” to the Hidalgo brother trio’s mother, and this transient self deprecatory humour works its charm like an oasis in the desert. Moreover, his ultimate word of advice, “boyfriends are temporary, but your friends will be there forever” is the truth that these stories should live by.

Yet again, its ironic how steamy romances like such acknowledge that platonic friendships are meant for the long run and possibly the most emotionally stable anchor in one’s life, but then funnily retract and fall back on their words to produce romances that are clearly not built for the long run. First loves are a lot about flowing with the flow, and giving into your pheromone drives, but as Hannah Waddhingham rightfully asked Juno Temple in Ted Lasso‘s Season 1 (hate to bring up that wholesome content here) – “What about accountability?” – Clearly none of these toxic adventurous sexy escapades have a grip on that.

Notably, the most enthralling and interesting romance in the mix is the actual star-crossed connection between the elder brother Artemis and Claudia, who also happens to be the independent help of their family, doing her best to survive and provide for her own. However, the focus mostly remains on the front-running couple who seemed to have outgrown each other too in silent ways.

Ultimately, it’s Yoshi’s character who actually riles up some authentic feeling in the viewer, but the writing seems to have made up its mind on sticking with losing battles concerned with a false image of love.

Final Thoughts

All in all, the sequel is visually entrancing, and the cinematography perfectly fits the bill for the summer season, making you feel the coolness of the sea too, but thematically, it’s the same old same old as always. The digitally adept Gen-Z-ness of the film’s visuals is on point, and its further illustrated in the closing edits.

In the end, the sequel is just as frivolous as the previous instalment, but at least leaves you with the lesson not to take your best friends forgranted, or ditch them for a hot body count. As long as you switch off your brain, the pettiness of the story and its characters won’t strike you hard. So don’t think too much while watching this number, and just tune in if you’re into erotica romances that can’t last beyond the summer, but of course, things haven’t been settled in finality as there’s more to come in the next confirmed threequel that’ll possibly bring in more lustful misadventures and toxic cliches.

Through My Window 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

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