AllMovie

Based on a true story, much of this somber drama centers on Rafael, a kindly but emotionally-distant butcher who has avoided people after accidentally castrating himself while cutting meat several years before. He has since considered himself unmanned and therefore undesirable to women. One day he sees a young man beating up his lover and can't help but intervene. Taking pity on the girl, he takes her to his home. Her name is Marina and she tells Rafael how she and her boyfriend Daniel grew up in a terrible environment without parental guidance. She also tells him that she is pregnant. Rafael treats the troubled girl with kindness and she responds by proving that there is more than one way to be a man and to experience love. In this way, the two find healing and happiness raising Marina's daughter. Years later, their happiness is nearly destroyed by the sudden return of the ultra macho Daniel. Caring nothing for Marina, nor his child, he only wants a place to live. Though he knows that Marina has strong, unresolved feelings for Daniel, Rafael does not want to lose her and so allows Daniel to stay. With only lifetimes of strife in common, the three lonely, disaffected adults thus form an uneasy family which must cope with painful issues and choices.