André, a listless Brazilian teenager and the son of a successful plastic surgeon, lives a life of wealth and privilege, shuttling between the hot sands of Ipanema beach and his family's luxurious penthouse apartment in Rio. In 1985, when he is just sixteen, André's mother is killed in a car accident. Clouded with grief, André, his younger brother, Thiago, and his father travel with their domestic help to Belém, a jungle city at the mouth of the Amazon, where the intense heat of the rain forest only serves to heighten their volatile emotions. After they arrive back in Rio, André's father loses himself in his work, while André spends his evenings in the apartment with Luana, the beautiful daughter of the family's maid. Three decades later, André is a successful doctor and middle-aged father, living in London and recently separated from his British wife. He drinks too much wine and is plagued by recurring dreams. One day he receives an unexpected letter from Luana, which begins to reveal the other side of their story, a story André has long repressed.