David, has just failed his university examinations and has one year to re-write them. Ruben, his father, a pragmatic and successful businessman, has been paying for David's education, the pursuit of which he considers a waste of time. Ruben wants David to work and make himself useful and he strikes a deal with him: David can stay and study for his exams at Ruben's house in La Perrera, a coastal resort town, while he builds a house for himself. And so, a year-long adventure starts for David, an urban intellectual, in the isolated La Perrera and among its off-season residents who include nearly as many dogs as men, where the only women are either pregnant or prostitutes, and where no one wants to work and things are done out of friendship more than anything else.