Netflixable? Those Spanish lovebirds are back, “Through My Window: Across the Sea”

Now that Netflix has turned its popular “horny teens” melodrama “Through My Window” into a franchise, only one question remains. Will the the filmmakers have the cojones to bust these two lovebirds up? For good?

“Through My Window: Across the Sea” takes Raquel (Clara Galle) into Barcelona to study writing at the university there. Her story, inspired by the love affair than began as a crush on the rich boy she spied “através de mi ventana” — “Through My Window” — is finished, she figures. Her teacher thinks this, too.

But Raquel is still shy about sharing it with a publisher, no matter how much her lifelong pal Yoshi (Guillermo Lasheras) urges her on. And she is also distracted by longing for her far-off crush-turned rich-boy lover Ares (Julio Peña), who went off to med school in Stockholm “across the sea.”

But he’s got that “longing” thing too, which is why he dashes home for the Noche de San Juan holiday. Let’s pick up right where the hot sex left off, eh?

Yes, titillation was a selling point of the first film, which gave us a Spanish spin on the Netflix summer teen sex/romance formula. The sequel is a tad more explicit in that regard, as skinny bespectacled and hair-dyeing Yoshi (short for Yoshua) stops pining for Raquel long enough to be bowled over by go-for-it-Anna (Carla Tous) and Raquel’s other BFF Daniela (Natalia Azahara) interrupts her plans to split Raquel and Mr. Rich/Mr. Right up by pursuing an “open relationship” with Raquel’s beau’s younger brother Apolo (Hugo Arbues).

As this corner of the Costa Brava college kids clubbing/partying scene includes a young Frenchman, Daniella’s all about introducing Apolo to the French phrase “menage a trois.”

Meanwhile, Ares’ older brother Artemis (Eric Masip) is pursuing an affair with the daughter of a family servant (Emilia Lazo) who has gone into service herself.

Yes, the three hermanos are still named Ares, Apolo and Artemis, as if Wattpad fiction writer Ariana Godoy giving them “Hidalgo” (nobleman) as a surname wasn’t pretentious enough.

The sex scenes are more frequent and more explicit. Yes, the Mediterranean must be, uh, chilly at the time of year they filmed this.

But “Across the Sea” manages a couple of seriously touching moments, which is more than “Through My Window” could boast. Alas, none of them are related to romance or the “longing” of our pretty but bland romantic leads.

Cheating, bullying, tragedy and “the long distance romance thing” all play into the absurdly arbitrary and predictable plot.

Mostly, though, this film is a “placeholder” in what I guess will be a trilogy, a film that exists to arbitrarily test our two lovers before whatever comes our way in the third film, after “To Be Continued.”

Are they fated to be together or not? Will the third script in this girly wish-fulfillment-fantasy (marry a handsome rich guy) finally grow a pair, or will they take the predictable way out?

And are you just here for the nudity?

Rating: TV-MA, sex, nudity, profanity

Cast: Clara Galle, Julio Peña, Guillermo Lasheras, Natalia Azahara, Emilia Lazo, Andrea Chaparro, Hugo Arbues, Eric Masip and Ivan Lapadula

Credits: Directed by Marçal Forés, scripted by Ariana Godoy and Eduard Sola A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:50

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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