Jessica, Sabrina and Daiane have dreams, just like all young people of any social class or place in the world. They live in a low-income neighborhood in the periphery of Rio de Janeiro and find in prostitution a way to survive and satisfy their consumer desires. However, even faced with the trials of absolute uncertainty and lack of hope, Jessica, Sabrina and Daiane insist on loving, having fun and planning their future.

In Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, the idle aspirant writer Zeca has been living with Arts Professor Júlia for five years. He is stuck on page 50 of his novel for a long time and Zeca claims lack of inspiration to conclude the plot. He leads a comfortable life from inheritance left by his mother and administrated by his father Humberto. When Zeca sees Júlia alone with her best friend Carol in his flat, he believes that they are having a love affair and becomes obsessed with Carol, following her. Júlia travels to São Paulo with work giving Zeca the perfect opportunity to have an affair with Carol. So begins his complicated life: while Júlia works and studies for her doctorate, Zeca has sex with Carol during the days and with Júlia during the nights. Zeca plots a scheme to stay with either Carol or Júlia but his plan does not go as he hoped.

Fishy businessman deposits some money in his secretary’s (and lover) account. But a typing mistake sends the money to an honest woman’s account, whose husband had just been fired.

Luiza is an architect who just got out of a ruinous relationship. Gabriel is a biologist and he has finished a long marriage with divorce. When they both meet, chances that they can do well together are not that big. But they will try to, even if their friends Barata (a convict bachelor totally skeptical when it comes to love) and Marta (a mathematic analyst who wishes that human relations were just as exact as numbers are) think otherwise.

Tereza tries to leave her past and forge her own destiny and happiness by going through several affairs.

After the funeral of her father Arnaldo, who committed suicide, Engraçadinha confesses to the priest the motives. On the engagement party of her cousin Sílvio with Letícia, Engraçadinha seduces him in the library, and later she ends her engagement with Zózimo and lies to Letícia, telling that she is pregnant. Letícia decides to tell Arnaldo what happened, and he says that the child can not be born. He exposes dirty secrets to Engraçadinha, and a tragedy is announced.

Three stories of infidelity unfold: a man falls for a married woman, a young girl draws the gaze of her sister’s fiancé, and a husband takes his unfaithful wife hostage after discovering her affair with his best friend.

The movie depicts the political crisis that led to the suicide of president Getúlio Vargas, in the 19 days that preceded August 24, 1954. The crisis began with the attempted assassination of journalist and politician Carlos Lacerda in August 5, 1954, at rua Toneleros, Rio de Janeiro, in which Major Vaz was assassinated instead. Investigations pointed to Gregório Fortunato, chief of Vargas' personal guard, as the orderer of the frustrated assassination. This incident was one of the most importants in the history of Brazil.

The routine of a group of brazilian teenagers living in Brasília, Brazil's capital. Their aspirations, dreams and illusions presented in a context of a country that was on the final years of a dictatorship back in the 1980s.