Pedro and Rui kiss after a first-anniversary dinner; Pedro drives home, dying en route in a crash. Another pair of lovers, Odete and Alberto, split over her desire to have a child. Pedro lived in Odete’s building. She attends the wake, stealing a ring, a last gift from Rui, from Pedro’s finger. She behaves hysterically at the graveside, and later, wearing Pedro’s ring, she insists she’s carrying Pedro’s child. Rui grieves as well, drinking too much and seeing Pedro’s apparition. Odete’s obsession intrudes on Rui, whose grief makes him vulnerable to her hysteria. Can this end well?

Young and handsome Sergio works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon, Portugal. He can’t force himself to connect with his pretty female co-worker Fatima, who displays an avid interest in him, so instead Sergio roams the city with the trash company’s pet dog. Eventually Sergio becomes fascinated with a sleek motorcycle, and then also its arrogant owner – a young man totally indifferent to Sergio. The frustrated trash collector’s surfacing desires unleash his darkest impulses, sending him down a dangerous path of violence, depravity and degradation.