Carmen, a 50-year-old housewife hailing from a middle-class family, leads a comfortable life in Santiago with her successful and respected doctor husband, Miguel, and their grown children. It's the winter of 1976, three years after Augusto Pinochet's coup led to a military dictatorship in Chile. During this time, Carmen embarks on a trip to her summer home to oversee renovation work and find some personal respite.

While at her summer house, Father Sánchez, the local priest, seeks her aid in caring for Elías, a young man involved in the resistance against the dictator. Elías has been wounded by a bullet and has sought refuge with the priest. Carmen, drawing on her medical knowledge and a past ambition to study medicine, as well as her involvement in charitable church projects, agrees to assist in caring for Elías.