La protagonista es una «heroína cotidiana» a través de la cual Almodóvar realiza «un retrato de la feminidad de extrarradio» con un ama de casa que quiere estructurar su familia. Carmen Maura encarna a una sufrida ama de casa que debe convivir, en un barrio de los suburbios de Madrid, con un marido machista, un hijo chapero, otro hijo traficante de drogas y una suegra neurótica. Es adicta a los medicamentos estimulantes y su única amiga es una vecina prostituta. 

Housewife Gloria lives with her husband Antonio (a taxi driver and forger) in a tiny apartment in Madrid.  Also living in the apartment is her lunatic mother-in-law, who's addicted to bottled water and cupcakes; and her two sons, one of them a drug dealer, the other gay.  Gloria works as a cleaning lady to supplement the household income and has a pill addiction.  Her best friend and next door neighbor is Cristal, a prostitute, who seems to be the most normal of all of them.  Antonio has a secret lust for a decadent German singer he used to work for in Germany as a chauffeur.  A writer tries to convince Antonio to forge letters from the Fuehrer and travels to Germany to meet the singer and invite her to participate in the fraud.  Meanwhile, Gloria turns her gay son over to her dentist, who, of course, is a pervert.  Her mother-in-law finds a lizard while walking with her grandson on the street one day and names it "Dinero" (Money) and brings it home, because that's the only "dinero" they'll ever have in the apartment.  To put the frosting on the story of this quirky little family, Gloria gets into an argument with Antonio and hits him on the head with a piece of wood, thus bringing the police into the middle of this domestic zoo.

DVD-R is in Spanish with switchable English subtitles.  Approx. 97 mins.  See film sample for audio and video quality.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SWITCHABLE (SOFT) SUBTITLES WILL NOT SHOW UP WHEN VIEWING THE SAMPLE BELOW.  IF YOU SEE SUBTITLES, THEN THEY ARE HARD-ENCODED (meaning, they cannot be turned off when viewing the film):