Magical Girl

Luis blackmails Bárbara because he desperately needs money to buy his terminally ill daughter Alicia the Magical Girl Yukiko costume that costs €6,845. After learning that Bárbara's husband is a rich psychiatrist, Luis sees an opportunity to exploit her affair for financial gain. He claims to have recorded their sexual encounter on his phone and threatens to tell her husband unless she pays him €7,000.

Earlier, Luis already demonstrated his desperation when he tried to break a shop window to steal money, showing he'd resort to criminal acts.

Bárbara goes to Oliver Zoco's mansion as a one-time job arranged by madam Ada to earn money for Luis. She is taken by a chauffeur to a remote location where she is instructed to remove her clothes and memorize the BDSM safeword 'hojalata' before entering a room. The job is described as non-penetrative but involves BDSM activities behind a black lizard door.

Bárbara's willingness to degrade herself for money reflects her earlier unstable behavior, including the baby joke and self-harm with the mirror.

Damián, the math teacher from the opening scene who was sent to prison for helping Bárbara years ago, believes Luis raped Bárbara. After finding a badly wounded Bárbara at his doorstep, hearing her false claim that she was raped by her blackmailer, and being manipulated by her, Damián obtains a gun and hunts down Luis. He forces Luis to kill him in public, but when Luis fails to act, Damián kills Luis and two witnesses in a bar. He then goes to Luis's apartment and shoots 12-year-old Alicia, who is wearing the Magical Girl dress and holding the scepter.

The opening scene established Damián as a teacher humiliated by Bárbara's note trick, and his later fear of leaving prison suggests unresolved trauma connected to her.

Bárbara helps Luis because he has evidence of her affair and threatens to tell her husband Alfredo, a wealthy psychiatrist. She is trapped by her own infidelity and cannot risk her marriage being exposed. Additionally, Bárbara appears to be mentally unstable throughout the film, as shown by her self-harm, substance use, and erratic behavior, which makes her vulnerable to manipulation.

Bárbara's unstable mental state is established early when she jokes about throwing a baby out a window and injures herself with a mirror.

In the opening scene, Bárbara performs a hand-trick illusion with a note in math class, humiliating her teacher Damián. This establishes her character as manipulative and sets up the film's ending, where Damián plays the same trick on her with a phone, claiming to have recorded their encounter. The trick represents how Bárbara uses deception to control people, and it returns when Damián uses her own tactics against her.

This trick directly foreshadows the ending where Damián repeats the same deception with a phone recording.

Alicia is a terminal cancer patient who is also an otaku known as Yukiko in her online fan community. The Magical Girl Yukiko costume is her final wish - a rare and expensive costume from a Japanese television series costing €6,845. Luis, desperate to give his dying daughter happiness in her remaining time, promises to grant this wish no matter what it takes.

Alicia's earlier fainting episode while dancing to Japanese music foreshadows her deteriorating health and the urgency of her wish.

Damián believes Luis raped Bárbara. After finding wounded Bárbara at his apartment building, she falsely tells him at the hospital that she was raped by her blackmailer. Convinced by this lie and still emotionally connected to Bárbara from their past, Damián becomes obsessed with avenging her. He obtains a gun and tracks down Luis, framing his murder as justice for a crime that never occurred.

Damián's past relationship with Bárbara and his imprisonment for helping her establish his emotional investment in her wellbeing.

Luis instructs Bárbara to hide the blackmail money inside a Spanish Constitution book at a public library near Puerta de Toledo. This serves as a discreet handoff location that won't raise suspicion. The Constitution book is symbolic - it's a public, official document used to conceal the illegal transaction, representing how the characters exploit legitimate structures for criminal purposes.

The library location becomes significant when Bárbara later asks Damián to retrieve the Constitution, continuing the cycle of deception.

At the end, Damián visits Bárbara and tells her he has 'taken care of everything.' He plays on her the same trick she played on him years ago - claiming to have recorded their interaction on his phone. Just as Bárbara claimed to have a recording of their affair to manipulate Damián, Damián now uses the same psychological tactic to manipulate her, though it's unclear if he actually has a recording or is simply mirroring her deception.

This directly echoes the opening scene where Bárbara performed a hand-trick with a note, showing her pattern of using false evidence to control situations.

Bárbara wakes up at night and injures her forehead with a mirror, suggesting she is experiencing significant psychological distress. This act, combined with her earlier joke about throwing a baby out the window, her substance use (alcohol and pills), and her volatile behavior throughout the film, establishes her as mentally unstable and emotionally fragile, making her vulnerable to Luis's manipulation.

This self-harm foreshadows her later breakdown and false rape claim to manipulate Damián.

When Luis attempts to break a shop window to steal money for the Magical Girl costume, he vomits from above just before he can act. This moment represents both his physical and moral revulsion at what he's about to do. Despite his desperation to fulfill his daughter's wish, his body rejects the criminal act, though he ultimately finds another way to get the money through blackmail.

This failed attempt shows Luis's moral conflict before he fully descends into criminality.

Bárbara holds a friend's baby and jokes about throwing it out the window, a disturbing moment that reveals her dark sense of humor and unstable mental state. This scene occurs after she pretends to take medication, further establishing her unpredictable and morally compromised character. The joke shocks those around her and foreshadows the violence and disregard for innocence that will occur later in the film.

This anticipates the tragic ending where children become victims of the adults' actions.