Julia wakes up in her apartment, surrounded by the bloody bodies of her lovers Ramiro and Nahuel. Ramiro is still alive but barely. Neither survivor can recall the exact details but Julia, who is now pregnant, is duly sent to a prison housing mothers and expectant inmates.
Jail time, the birth of her son and her ongoing struggle to raise him behind bars seem to simultaneously soften and harden our heroine. But it’s only when the authorities threaten to remove the boy that we see the true measure of the woman.
Martina Gusman does sterling work as this bundle of damaged and contradictory impulses while her director (and offscreen partner) Pablo Trapero reinvents the women in jail flick as a classy modern thriller.