 Antonio Alcántara (Imanol Arias) and Mercedes Fernández (Ana Duato) are a married couple that have emigrated in the 1960s from Sagrillas, a (fictional) small village in the province of Albacete, to San Genaro, a (also fictional) working-class suburb in Madrid, along with her mother Herminia (María Galiana) and their three children, Inés (), Toni () and Carlos () seeking a better life away from the hardships of an impoverished countryside.Antonio works as an office boy at the Ministry of Agriculture headquarters in the mornings and at Don Pablo's (José Sancho) printing house in the afternoons.Mercedes and Herminia make trousers for a department store at home while doing the housekeeping.