The orphaned Hatzin arrives in northern Mexico to retrieve his father’s remains, although he refuses to accept the reality of his death. The boy latches onto a burly labor recruiter in whom he finds a surrogate parent and temporary breadwinner. But in the gray-market economy of cheap labor, loss of life is the order of the day, and the persistent yearning for wealth often leads to crime. Following his triumph at Venice, award-winning director Lorenzo Vigas returns with another fine-spun study of paternal authority and the lost vulnerable souls who intuitively gravitate towards it. In his diagnosis, the need for a dominant male figure is a typical ailment of Latin American countries. Most importantly, however, he manages to capture subtle emotions in the mesmeric stony countenance of the young non-actor Hatzín Navarrete.