Wafer factory-owner P. Tinto and his wife Olivia want a child of their own more than anything else in the world. Years of trying, however, have left them with nothing but a pair of extraterrestrial midgets living in the spare bedroom. When they decide to try adoption, a series of misroutings and chance encounters results in an escaped adult mental patient arriving at their door with adoption papers in hand. P. Tinto and Olivia accept this without question and welcome him in as their son. Can this family arrangement work?
After spending three years in captivity in Tunis, Bartolomé returns home Extremadura with the only hope to eat his favorite dish: the pork. Along the way he meets a deserter who is traveling with a sow.
Recounts the experiences of a middle-class family, the Alcántaras, during the last years of the rule of Francisco Franco and the beginning of the Spanish Transition to democracy.