In 2011, Zero, a bitter yet brilliant physicist, wrestles with the memory of a night twenty years earlier when his then-girlfriend publicly betrayed him at a college party. He now heads one of Brazil’s largest scientific projects, but his prickly temperament and outbursts push him toward the edge of being fired by his former college roommate and current sponsor, Sandra, who still believes in the promise of his work and defends him. With the steady support of his best friend and fellow scientist, Otávio, Zero dares to push the limits of science in the name of wealth and a new sustainable energy source.
Driven by a risky impulse, Zero activates an unfinished machine that could secure his fortune and change the energy landscape. The device, instead of delivering simple power, shunts him through a doorway to the past, whisking him back to 1991. In the unfamiliar year, the protagonist awakens in a strange city and realizes his key won’t fit his old apartment door. He asks a passerby for the date, confirming that he has indeed slipped through time. He makes his way toward a college party where, to his shock, he witnesses his younger self in an intimate moment with Helena. Helena confesses she loves him, and as she leaves to perform on stage, the older João—still bearing the weight of what he remembers—warns his younger self of what fate has in store and tries to steer events toward a different outcome.
The future version of João proceeds to reveal various future possibilities and even hints at a way to secure financial stability for everyone involved. He explains that Helena’s ex-boyfriend, Ricardo, will present her with champagne laced with a drug, potentially setting in motion a humiliating onstage moment for Helena involving honey and feathers. Helena’s future path would see her traveling to Spain with Ricardo, eventually becoming a model and stepping away from João forever. As the evening unfolds, the young João and Helena become entwined again, while the future João urges them to resist the drugged champagne and to choose a different fate. The spacetime drama intensifies as the future João vanishes from the scene, leaving the party to unfold with its own unpredictable consequences.
Back in 2011, the story shifts to an alternate present in which João is wealthy but not married to Helena. This version of events reveals that the future João has built a company called “Man From The Future,” but at a personal cost: he has betrayed Otávio, gone through several marriages, and even had Helena jailed after a cocaine discovery. He claims to be the João from the original timeline inhabiting a new-timeline body, yet his actions show both generosity and moral ambiguity. He frees Helena and donates to her, reinstates the time machine, and dons a spaceman suit before venturing back to 1991.
In that 1991 chapter, the spaceman-João confronts the original-future João and the younger João in their meeting, prompting a flurry of astonishment. The spaceman-João attempts to persuade the others to abandon their plans, but the confrontation spirals as the alternate-future Otávio enters the scene, having traveled back in time after João left the alternate 2011. Meanwhile, the young João reconnects with Helena, while Ricardo approaches with the champagne, unaware of the tangled timelines. João—whether drugged by the champagne or simply overwhelmed by the revelations—drinks and blacks out. The original-future João and alternate-future Otávio capture the spaceman-João, tie up the original-future João, and force Helena to confront her choices. The spaceman-João instructs Helena to abandon the young João, become a model, and meet him again twenty years in the future. A staged humiliation on stage—complete with honey and feathers—concludes the sequence for the night, while the alternate-future Otávio disappears along with the other versions of the trio.
The 2011 timeline resumes after the spaceman-João destroys the time machine’s source code, explaining that the device is too dangerous to keep. He also reveals a video of a younger Sandra, proving his claims about the nature of time travel. He then communicates with Helena via Twitter, and the couple eventually reunites at an airport, where Helena terminates Ricardo’s involvement in her life. A year later, João is acquitted of destroying the scientific project. Outside the courthouse, Sandra appears, and a critical revelation comes to light: the timeline they thought was altered may indeed be the original one, with Sandra having quietly nudged the past toward a version of events that leaves them financially secure. With this understanding, Helena and João look toward a brighter future, even as Helena adds a final reminder that João’s journey, while extraordinary, came with consequences—“cheated.”
