- When the estranged daughter of a hard-working live-in housekeeper suddenly appears, the unspoken class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray.
- Val spends 13 years working as nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She is financially stable but must live with the guilt of having left her daughter Jéssica in Pernambuco, in the northeast of Brazil, raised by relatives. As college entrance exams roll around, Jéssica wants to come to São Paulo to take her college entrance exams too. When Jéssica arrives, cohabitation is not easy. Everyone will be affected by the girl's personality and candor and Val finds herself right in the middle of it.
- In São Paulo, the housekeeper has been working for Carlos and Bárbara in their elegant house at Morumbi since their teenage son Fabinho was a child. Her estranged teenage daughter Jéssica, who lives in Pernambuco, was raised by her father and another woman but financially supported by Val. When Jéssica calls her mother to tell that she will travel to São Paulo to do the entrance exam for one of the best universities in São Paulo, Val asks permission to her employers to bring Jéssica to her room. They agree and the teenager is welcomed by the family. But soon she becomes a problem to Val since she does not follow the usual submission of maids, breaking the class barriers in the house and bringing disturbance to the relationships.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but must live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho's university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance, but she hasn't been raised to be a servant and her very existence turns Val's routine on its head. With precision and humor, the film depicts the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth just might be the ones to shake it up.—yusufpiskin
- For the past 13 long years, hard-working live-in housemaid Val, a Pernambuco native, has been toiling away in the São Paulo villa of Carlos and Bárbara, taking care of their only child, 17-year-old Fabinho. Val hasn't seen her own daughter Jéssica for well over a decade; but now that the self-confident young woman intends to move in with her mother to study architecture at the University of São Paulo, radical changes are afoot. Before long, the fragile employer/employee balance is disrupted, as Jéssica takes great joy in breaking every single rule in the house, and Val seems unable to take control of the situation. Can she rise above and beyond the unshakable rules that have governed her entire existence for decades?—Nick Riganas
- We see Val as a young woman, overseeing a small boy swimming in a pool. On a phone call she asks to speak to someone, who turns out to be her reluctant daughter. After young Fabinho gets out of the pool and asks when his mother will return, Val wraps him in a towel and cuddles him on her lap. Now Fabinho (Michel Joelsas) appears as a late teenager, and a middle-aged Val (Regina Casé) still nurtures and adores him. Val is the live-in housekeeper to low-key Dr. Carlos (Lourenço Mutarelli) and his exacting, hoity-toity wife Dona Barbara (Karine Teles).
Val is flustered by a phone call from her daughter Jessica, who wants to come to São Paolo from the rural north-east where she has grown up. Val brings Dona Barbara a birthday gift (which Barbara says they'll save "for a special occasion"), and nervously asks if her daughter can come & stay with Val, just until they find her a room. Barbara agrees and insists on paying for a new mattress.
At the airport, Val waits eagerly and anxiously looking for Jessica (Camila Márdila) who finds her first, and calls her Val, not Mother or Mom. Val is ecstatic, covering Jessica with unappreciated kisses and caresses. During the long bus ride from the airport, Jessica is somewhat horrified and irritated to learn that they will both be living at Barbara and Carlos' home. Arriving in Val's small room, now over-crowded with the brand-new second mattress, Jessica complains "how am I going to study?"
Val is clearing the family's lunch plates when Barbara asks to meet Jessica. A delighted Val introduces Jessica, and Dr. Carlos is obviously smitten. On a tour of the house, Jessica suggests she stay in the elegant guest room, and Carlos agrees. When he tells Barbara, she is clearly not pleased. As the days go by, tensions build as Carlos and Fabinho treat Jessica as a welcome visitor, Jessica considers them peers, while Val is mortified and Barbara annoyed by Jessica's confident lack of subservience -- a complete contrast to Val.
When Fabinho and his friend Skull playfully throw Jessica into the pool she has yearned to use, it results in a very public confrontation -- and Barbara calling to have it drained, saying she saw a rat in the pool. Jessica and Val have an appointment to see an apartment, which they want - only to find it has been rented to someone else. They return to the house where Barbara has already promised the guest room to her visiting cousin, so Jessica needs to be out of it "today". Carlos quietly, passionately, asks Jessica to marry him. Jessica is perplexed and on hesitatingly telling him no, he escapes by explaining it as a joke. Barbara discovers Jessica helping herself to "Fabinho's" ice cream, and Val confirms she has told Jessica many times not to eat it.
After dark, Jessica complains of the heat in Val's room. This leads to an argument unleashing years of anguish as Jessica asks why Val stopped visiting her, lashing out that her care-giver Sandra raised her, not Val. Val for once stands up for herself and points out that Sandra got the good part while she, Val, worked to provide money for Jessica's education and keep. Jessica packs and leaves, fleeing the house in a heavy downpour the night before college entrance exams. Fabinho and Jessica both take the exams; Fabinho fails by 2 points, and Jessica passes with flying colors. Soon after, Fabinho announces with delight that he is going to spend 6 months in Australia to learn English.
On a visit to Jessica, Val presses with questions about Jessica's life in the north-east, and why her father won't speak to her. She learns that Jessica has a baby boy, Jorge, whom she left in the north-east so she could go to college.
Val sees Fabinho off for his trip to Australia. The next day, she quits. She moves to Jessica's apartment, and suggests, to Jessica's joy, that Jorge should come live with them. Smiling, Jessica asks "are you going to take care of him, mother?" Val smiles broadly in response.
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