When the Brazilian government of the leftist president Goulart was overthrown by right-wing military men in 1964, the president's supporters and those who could be assumed to support him were either rounded up and imprisoned, or were harassed in some other way. In this drama, based on a play by Dias Gomes, Sergio is a writer and journalist with known left-wing affiliations. Thanks to his job at the newspaper, he got early word of the suppression and went into hiding at a friend's small apartment. However, he did not have a chance to notify his friend. When the man comes to his little apartment with a mistress (that is what he got it for), he is shocked to find Sergio in residence. Later, Sergio and his wife are reunited at the hiding place, and he must come to grips with his lack of seriousness about his revolutionary affiliations at the same time he and his wife confront the growing rift between them.