The Rain in España || TV Series Review

I heard of The Rain in España the way most people hear about things nowadays—through social media.

Technically, on YouTube shorts. I was seeing clips of other TV shows I like and this popped up. After watching enough clips on it over weeks, I had a basic gist of the plot and decided to give it a shot. I was excited to try something new too because it's my first Filipino show.

what is The Rain in España about?

Based on the Wattpad story of the same name, The Rain in España follows two university students as they pursue their dreams and fall in love for the first while balancing other aspects of life.

Luna is an architecture student, aspiring to be a lead architect in her parents' construction firm. Her parents are architects themselves so she was exposed to the work early on and became passionate about it. She lives with her cousin and her friend group's goal is to score well and be on the Dean's List in their universities. Luna is bubbly and enthusiastic.

Kalix is an Italian-Filipino law student. His doctor parents wanted him to pursue medicine as well but he veered off their path to study law. He is very reserved, quiet, and doesn't bother to be polite to people. His reputation is mainly that he's good looking.

Luna pursues Kalix when she develops a crush on him and their relationship is strong for a while. Unfortunately, their love isn't strong enough to stick through hardships that come along so they break up. Their paths cross again 10 years later, giving them a second chance at love.

The Rain in España is partly about first love and partly about getting over insecurities to make relationships work.

my review

I haven't read the Wattpad story so I cannot comment on that or the differences between the written work and the TV show. I'll be reviewing the show as it is.

Firstly, I have to talk about the language. The dialogue is in Filipino (Tagalog), and English, as per IMDB. I was quite curious to hear the language because language can say so much, you know? I was looking forward to seeing how they talk and see the tones in conversation.

Coming from English, Korean, and Indian languages TV shows, Filipino was immediately something new. The sounds and tones weren't familiar at all. It was interesting. Watching media from a new language is always a bit jarring and takes time to get used to.

They frequently switched between Filipino and English, often mixing words from both in a sentence. That is relatable because we speak like that in India as well. But it was interesting to hear the sounds from the two languages together, the English words were heavily accented when in combination with Filipino but less so otherwise.

The conversations between Luna and her friends showed it the most. The dialogue in Filipino would be quick and rolling off the tongue with some drawn out sing-songy words, like names, but the English dialogue is much slower. Many prominent sounds in Tagalog are new to me, they're not as prominent in all the languages I'm used to, so that was interesting too. I tried figuring out words but I don't think I got anything from the show 😂

I do think there were some things lost in translation because it felt like the Filipino dialogues were much longer than the English sentence shown below. But that's to be expected with any translated work.

I wish more of the dialogue was in Filipino, though. 50% or more was in English. Hence, I couldn't really listen to the language to learn something. Luna and some of her friends spoke majorly in Filipino while Kalix and few others spoke 90% English. Kalix spoke maybe 2 sentences in Filipino throughout the show.

The characters were okay. There could have been better. They had potential to connect to emotionally but the story kept jumping around and didn't allow for it.

I liked university Luna the most. She was cheerful, headstrong, and passionate. She studied hard and partied hard with her friends. Her friends' mantra is "flirt responsibly", lol. She's quick to like someone and quick to judge. The latter really gets her into problems. She cannot mask her emotions at all and small things affect her emotions easily.

The late-twenties Luna was not endearing at all and lowkey ruined the character for me. She seemed to have no personality except her job and being hung up on Kalix. She wasn't as cheerful anymore and she didn't smile as easily anymore. I kinda hated her outfits too. She just... seemed so bland compared to her younger self. Sure, I get growing up and being jaded but it felt like she was a different person (except her insecurities, they were the same). I don't think their breakup was bad enough to change her personality. It was not a catastrophic tragedy.

However, Luna had growth and moved on from her insecurities. It was nice to see that she was eventually more trusting and logical about things. She stopped being so quick to judge and was more secure in her relationship with Kalix at the end.

Kalix's biggest personality trait was his appearance. Sorry, I had to say it. His main reputation was that he's hot. Sure, he studied law and tried hard to be on the Dean's list but we didn't see that as much. We saw girls falling over for him more.

Kalix barely spoke and spoke mostly English. It was clear that the actor was cast for his looks rather than his ability to speak Filipino. Even when he tried to speak Filipino, it didn't come easily. I was disappointed by that.

His emotions weren't shown well either. Honestly, the acting sucked. I didn't like the acting throughout the show. Kalix didn't come off very human for most of it and even when emotion was shown, it was barely there. Maybe it's the character. But I do think the acting could have been much better. Even when the character was showing emotion like uncertainty, worry, or heartbreak, it didn't come through well on screen.

Kalix did have some depth but it came through very late. He was a secondary character to Luna and wasn't a strong character on his own, despite having a good story. He was meant to be misunderstood for the longest time and redeemed at the end. I wish his story was not what it was.

He clearly had a lot of issues too, which led to bad decisions and eventual breakup, but he didn't have growth on screen like Luna. It had to be assumed that he's moved on and more mature now rather than seeing it.

Coming to the romance, I liked their relationship a lot when they were in university and didn't like it at all after that. The plot when they got to know each other and fell in love was super cute. It had the same charm as in A Love So Beautiful. The second chance romance when they reconnected after a decade sucked, though.

It was so cute to see Luna flirt with the stoic Kalix in university. She developed a crush the first time she saw him and kept trying to talk to him. Her pickup lines were super embarrassing. I don't know how she was never embarrassed by her actions, but they made for good television. Kalix didn't respond to her easily so she had to pursue him for a good while to get his walls down. I cheered when she finally got him to smile and respond.

When they finally started dating, it was a golden period in their relationship. I liked that we see them date for a good while and fall in love instead of the story cutting off soon into their relationship. It was nice to watch them slowly become sure of their relationship, go on cute vacations, and meet families.

It was clear that their relationship wasn't strong enough to withstand problems, though. They were doing okay until something broke Luna's trust. It was super messy and heartbreaking but understandable. I didn't like how they cut off contact for 10 whole years though.

The only part of their second chance that I liked was Kalix flirting with Luna. He never flirted or said pickup lines when they were in university, only barely responding to Luna's. It was cute to see him try to win her back by flirting like she used to. Other than that, I wasn't invested in them getting back together at all. I didn't like how Luna held a grudge for so long and didn't at all consider listening to him, I didn't like how she automatically assumed he was the villain in another scenario, and how she was so rude to him even while they had to work together professionally.

A big part of both of their lives and dreams was to do well in university which would set them up for good careers. Both of them didn't do well during the tumultuous time. But when we see them again 10 years later there's zero reference to how they bounced back from those low points. Like, yeah, you're back together now and understanding what went wrong but what about catching up on those 10 years?? I was curious as to how they dealt with those failures and still had great careers, but got nothing.

The show ends with a proper happy ending. It was nice enough. I didn't care too much, though.

The plot was mostly centred around Luna, barely showing other characters when they're not relevant to her. Even Kalix didn't get much screen time without Luna in context.

It was a bit confusing because the plot seems to be about their relationship but we don't see his side of it. Luna is in the spotlight but we don't get to know her enough to say that the plot is from her POV or is about her. It might have come through better in the book as it might have been in Luna's POV, but it didn't translate well in the show.

The university parts were interesting and fun, the adult part was boring. The plot starts in present day and then keeps switching timelines, to draw parallels between the past and present. The past has more screen time for the first half of the show and the present dominates the last few episodes. The present was made more bearable because we got clips of the past in between.

There are a few plot points that aren't about the main couple but they're only there as plot devices to make something happen for the couple. Hence, those plotlines felt underdeveloped.

The Rain in España is 10 episodes long but could have been shorter. There's a lot of slow and still scenes where nothing really happens. I found myself tapping the fast forward option quite a few times, especially in the last few episodes.

overall

It's not great, it's not bad. I don't recommend it because there's nothing unique about it.

I haven't seen another Filipino TV show but I'm sure that there are better ones. This just showed up in front of me first. I'll try to find a better show to watch soon.

chat with me!

Do you watch TV shows in different languages? What's something you find interesting about a specific language? Do you have any TV show recommendations for me? Tell me in the comments!