Zapa is a locksmith in a quiet and little town lost somewhere in the province of Buenos Aires. The work is quite slow, and hours seem to pass slowly. Polaco, the owner of the shop, sends him on a job that consists of opening a safe at an office. The next day, Zapa is imprisoned for being responsible of robbing the place. Ismael, his uncle, a retired policeman, bails him out and sends him to Buenos Aires. Zapa becomes an aspiring officer in the Buenos Aires Police. He gets to his new home city, takes the instructional course, works at a precinct, has a love affair with a teacher and starts to see his life turn into a strange fiction.
In Buenos Aires, the twenty and something year old Jewish-Argentinean Ariel Makaroff has left the University of Architecture and spends his time wandering through the downtown gallery where his mother has a lingerie shop and his brother runs an importation business, trying to get his Polish passport and move to Europe. Ariel has never understood why his father left him when he was a baby to fight in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. When his father returns to Buenos Aires, Ariel discovers the reason why his father left his family.
On a trip to Paris Sally meets Pablo, a tango dancer. He starts teaching her to dance then she returns to London to work on some "projects". She visits Buenos Aires and learns more from Pablo's friends. Sally & Pablo meet again but this time their relationship changes, she realises they want different things from each other. On a trip to Buenos Aires they cement their friendship.