SYNOPSIS

Budapest, early fall, in a dilapidated apartment block in the ghetto district. Independent but vulnerable, thirty-two-year-old Noá lives in a near-empty sublet, among boxes and curbside furniture, constantly ready to move. She is working as an illegal cab driver doing small-time business and hoping to save enough money for her own apartment, in which she could have a safe and solid place in the world. During a night ride, she meets twenty-six-year-old Juli, an affluent suburban woman who is trying to escape her family, but is unable to break away from her overbearing parents and the family’s chihuahua business. The two women soon fall in love, but Juli doesn’t reveal the whole picture about her complicated family life to Noá. For her parents, it is unacceptable that Juli is in a lesbian relationship, so Juli creates a double life, while promising Noá that she will gradually distance herself from her controlling family. After moving to Noá’s place, Juli begins to rent a sublet in which she creates a facade to hide the fact that she is living with another woman. From time to time, Juli greets her mother in the fake apartment, acting as if she had roommates. At first, Noá tries to face this situation with humour and patience in order to deal with the various absurd situations the set-up creates but eventually, the lies and the secrets begin to poison their relationship. Juli is afraid of losing her financial stability while Noá fears Juli will never be able to take her in public. They are also burdened by the financial problems created by this double life. Juli is trying to get more money from working for the kennel in order to become financially independent, while Noá undertakes increasingly risky illegal deals to make ends meet. At the film’s high point, Juli’s mother gives an ultimatum to her daughter: Either she stops lying and returns to her family and the kennel business or, if she wants to live with Noá, then she will have to do everything on her own, without financial or emotional support. Juli is shaken—she honestly loves Noá, but she is afraid to lose her parents and to become financially independent. For a while Juli is trying to please both worlds, but eventually, she confesses to Noá that she is unable to step away from her parents. In the end, Noá lets her go. In the closing scene, we see Juli in a newly furnished, wide apartment that  includes a mini-kennel, which suggests she has become physically independent but at the same time, has moved deeper in the co-dependent relationship she tried to get away from in the beginning of the film.