Summer of 1982, a beach in the south of Portugal. Rui and his parents live closed in their worlds, blind to the failure that characterizes them as a family and condemns them to the malaise of survival. Rui will have school exams but he is only interested in music and in the exploration of imaginary worlds that he constantly sketches in drawings. Only Joana seems capable of pulling him out of his autism. The girl's vitality fascinates him.
When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy -- the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in the garden, revealing that fate can have several twists and turns in one's life, depending on decisions that are made early on.
