California, Mojave Desert, 1998. A strange glow appears in the sky. Sam, a forty-something door-to-door salesman, travels through the few inhabited zones of the Californian desert in search of clients, yet everything seems deserted. What's more, his wife won't answer his calls. It's as if everyone were avoiding him. When his car breaks down, Sam becomes a prisoner of the empty, hostile environment. Alone and without human contact for days on end, he listens continuously to a talk-show on the only local radio station. The host, a man named Eddy, takes calls from listeners who share their thoughts on a child killer at large in the area. At the same time, Sam starts getting psychologically harassed by strange threats he receives on his pager. Gradually, people begin to reappear and attempt to kill him. Sam has become a target and he must now defend himself. Little by little he loses it, caught up in a paranoid identity crisis. Is he truly the killer they're after, or is he being driven ...

奥托·布鲁姆是一个非凡的人，他经历了一段时间的逆转——在岁月中倒退，只记得未来。

母亲病重，艾尔玛和艾瑞克兄弟两人无人照顾，只能被送往由校长赫克所开办的寄宿学校之中。赫克是一个信奉暴力的男人，他坚信，唯有通过武力才能够令学校中的孩子们真正信服，才能够引导他们走上正确的道路。 兄弟两人在这座名为学校实为监狱的牢笼之中受尽折磨，圣诞节妈妈会来接他们回家的承诺成为了他们生存下去的唯一动力，然而，两人等啊等啊，等来的却是妈妈的死讯。莉莉安是学校里新上任的文学教师，她敏锐的察觉到了这所学校里正在发生的惨无人道的暴行，却对这一切无能为力。

影片根据一个真实的故事改编——普奇奥家族。这个富裕的布宜诺斯艾利斯家族索取赎金，杀人赚钱。根据阿根廷犯罪史上一次可怕的事件，电影剖析了罪恶的道德模糊性和平凡性。

由丹妮•弗莱德指导电影《相对的幸福》