Winter rekindling: The tale of Raquel and Ares’ lives
By the 3rd film of the Through My Window trilogy, the relationship of Raquel Mendoza (Clara Galle) and Ares Hidalgo (Julio Peña Fernández) has transformed beyond the star-crossed neighbors of book 1’s. Their relationship has deteriorated to shambles after Cross the Sea. They have separated, mistakes have been made, love has diminished, or at the very least, love has become complicated. The cold weather in Barcelona during winter reflects the emotional distance in the couple’s life.
Raquel has moved on: she has a new boyfriend, Gregory (Iván Lapadula), and she is grieving the death of her best friend Yoshi. Ares is in a relationship with Vera (Andrea Chaparro), but he is grappling with family obligations, reputation, and suppressing his true feelings for Raquel.
Raquel and Ares constantly bump into each other. These interactions happen during a winter break party, or at random moments when windows open and memories become alive. The narrative transformed, Raquel’s internal journey becomes stronger. In the end, she has to confront the truth: is love enough when family, loyalty, and deceit work against you? Ares wrestles with guilt and regret; trying to understand what does he need to sacrifice in order to love Raquel unconditionally.
The film builds toward a dramatic crisis: Anna (Carla Tous), inflamed with wrath and unresolved sorrow about Yoshi, plays a dangerous part in poisoning a drink at a publisher’s party. The pool scene, with its almost-tragic turn, pushes both Raquel and Ares to make choices about risk, sacrifice, and finally closure. The ending flashes forward five years: Raquel and Ares together, moving into an apartment. She has just published her novel, the families reconciled, their love surviving both melodrama and a catastrophic disaster. Many fans expected a bittersweet or even tragic ending; the film, however, delivers a happy resolution.
The faces, the lives off screen, and how they prepped.
Clara Galle as Raquel has had a swift rise, considering she was the first of the cast in the first film in 2022. She speaks in interviews about how to wear the shoes of Raquel goes beyond romantic yearning, it is about reclaiming one’s narrative. This part, as she has to tap into deeper wells of emotion every time, has got her a balance of regional attention with an international fanbase. Her prep reportedly involved strengthening her emotional stamina, for grief, for confrontation and maneuvering the confrontation of the literary side of the character she plays.
Intersection of Julio Peña Fernández and Ares depicts both experience and conflict. Fernández has been acting in Anglophone adolescent films for some time, and is, in some circles, considered a 21st century thespian. He has stated Ares is a far more flawed, human character in this chapter—balancing ego, love, and family pressure. He was required to display a sense of regret and some moral compromise in addition to mere chemistry. There were also complex elements of physical danger, like the pool scene, and emotional elements where silence, averted gazes, and unarticulated sorrow were more salient than the spoken word.
Author Ariana Godoy, who first converted the book to a screenplay with the title Through My Window, kept revised drafts to the whole trilogy for cohesion and consistency. A great deal of her life history was the backbone of the narrative, and there was a sense of appreciation among the fans for her adherence to the source material and her effort to ensure the films were reflective of her works.
The perceived anticipation versus what the fans were hoping for
As soon as Netflix made the announcement for Looking at You, the anticipation had already heightened. The first film racked in millions of hours of views from all over the world, while the sequel received mixed reviews, but still had a strong fanbase, primarily from the readers of the book. The trailers added even more emotional stakes for fans, hinting at a winter in Barcelona, the release of Raquel’s novel, and unresolved emotions. Would the tonal shift in the trilogy be as fans speculated? Would Yoshi’s disappearance finally be addressed? Would the trilogy break the negative patterns that the audience criticized in the previous films?
Many fans anticipated a more somber, thought-provoking end to the film. Some hopeful for tragedy, while others wanted closure, even at the price of a heavy price. Both Clara Galle and Julio Peña, Raquel and Ares, admitted that they would like to see more epic, tragic, and even Shakespearean, how in the end they both die in the pool scene. That concept even crossed the mind of the producers, until they vastly decided to give the audience a hopeful conclusion.
The moment the movie was uploaded to Netflix in February 2024, it was an instant hit, topping charts in numerous countries and pulling the entire trilogy back in the global top 10 of the platform. The franchise had added what was once a simple love story on a Wattpad, to becoming one of Netflix’s most viewed and successful Spanish teen romance films.
Reconstructing the chapter is anything but straightforward.
The journey of the film to this point has been harrowing. Most of the particulars have not been divulged.
The third movie’s apportionment of subplots such as Anna’s poisoning and Raquel’s foray into the publishing world is primarily thanks to the book’s and film’s script supervision Ariana Godoy. Without Ariana Godoy, the film would have pivoted towards a more conventional, uninspired, and bogged down unwanted distractions route.
Faux snow and festive party scenes underlined the beauty of and winter in Barcelona. The rest of the film shoots contained several challenges. Night shoots, as Cast members and storm in a teacup sequences described them, recalled some sequences needing an inordinate amount take- in pitch dark timing of the fog, cold, and festering winter witch.
Attention lamented Tsukimi to her near niece about the hollow absence Yoshi, pain tied to Raquel’s love inside of her as the pool, and the near-debate in other her struggled scenes. Each chapter, Galle has recounted from the three films, Raquel’s added emotional core made them deeper for she wanted them to lose her more.
The scratched footage discusses alternate endings. And while closure is rarely provided, there is a tragic spins as well. They span from the lovers perishing together to the world embracing the heart-breaking, empty sorrow.What worked, what didn’t, and what only fans noticed
Many people were pleased with the final timeskip: Raquel and Ares 5 years in the future, together and moving in, was a nice touch. The subplot about publishing a novel added complexity, making Raquel more than just the girl in love. The fans have been waiting for the drama with the pool, the rescue, and the poisoning.
Critics, on the other hand, considered the movie overly dramatized. Some of Apolo’s love story, and Claudia’s problems, were considered filler. Ares is still thought of, in some circles, as a guy who has lost some of his progress as a person, and still controlling and sort of undecided. The poisoning part of the story was considered parts of the story, while some thought, was simply too much.
What the attentive fans noticed: the subtler touches about they how they were amazed by Raquel dedicating her book to Yoshi, the lighting changing from cold to warm between the exteriors and the warm interiors, and how the window motif evolved from voyeuristic to something more genuine.
A story which is far more relatable than we might suppose
With the Indian audience, Looking at You struck a chord. Love thwarted by family obligation, jealousy resulting in malice, grief stalking the romance, lovers estranged and reunited – these are the themes that are a fixture in Bollywood melodramas. The overflowing sentiment, the ultimate ‘happy after suffering’ aspect, the personal aspirations and family dreams, and the afterthoughts, all made the movie touch Spain at a much deeper level.
By the last frame, Through My Window 3 had not only completed a trilogy. It had also traced a path of evolution, for Raquel, Ares, and for the actors playing their roles too, It was much more than teenage desire. For the viewer, it was about redemption, about the endurance of love in the face of folly, loss, and a willingness to keep moving ahead.
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