Good-bye, I'm leaving
(Com licenca, et vou a luta)

A working-class family lives in a little apartment on the outskirts of Rio in a run-down and violent neighborhood. The father, a petty officer in the army, is seriously ill, the son mentally disturbed and the mother a discouraged woman broken by the harshness of her life. Eliane, the 15-year-old girl, starts going out with Otavio, a 33-year-old somewhat unconventional man, divorced and father of two children. The mother is against this relationship and mobilises her allies : the father, the grand-mother, the aunt, the neighbours, the juvenile judge and the police.