Basilio a pickpocket with no luck, enters a mental institution to retrieve a valuable diamond necklace that briefly passed through his hands and whose value was unable to recognize. Once inside the asylum, Basilio will try to use all the skills of his trade to overcome the threats that keep him from reaching his goal. In the end, the only escape for Basilio will be to undergo the "Torapia", an innovative experimental therapy that connects man with the beast within us all.

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.