What Have I Done to Deserve This?

Gloria juggles housework, childcare and a grueling schedule in a cramped Madrid apartment by the motorway. She also works as a cleaning lady to stretch the family budget and relies on amphetamines to keep going. The home is crowded, shabby and perpetually short on money.

Gloria's relationship with Antonio, a taxi driver, is strained and ridden with resentment. Their attempts to pay bills and maintain the apartment push them toward constant bickering. The pressure of poverty weighs heavily on both of them.

Fifteen years earlier, in Germany, Antonio drove for Ingrid Muller, a German singer, and had a brief affair. He keeps a signed photograph and a tape of her song Nur nicht Aus Liebe Weinen as reminders. The past haunts Gloria as she discovers these personal mementos attached to Antonio's life.

In Antonio's taxi, he meets the writer Lucas who casually mentions the possibility of forging Hitler's diaries for a big profit. This seeds an underground idea that could secure the family's future but also draw them into danger. The suggestion is presented as a potential escape from poverty.

Antonio is connected to forging letters that Hitler supposedly sent, and there is a book of Ingrid's memoirs that contains those letters. He helps create these faked documents and becomes involved with a dangerous scheme. The forgeries promise a lucrative payoff but threaten to unravel his family.

Miguel, twelve, has been sleeping with older men, shocking Gloria and revealing the family's moral rot. When she confronts him, the boy remains defiant, asserting his autonomy with the line: 'I'm the master of my own body.' The confrontation highlights Gloria's sense of powerlessness and fear.

Toni, fourteen, dreams of farming and begins selling heroin to fund the dream. He is risking his own life and his mother's stability as he navigates a world of drugs and crime. The family's precarious finances worsen as his plan grows.

Gloria's neighbors Cristal and Juani provide a rough social counterpoint to her life. Cristal is a prostitute with a heart of gold while Juani is bitter and obsessed with cleanliness, bullying her daughter Vanessa who has telekinetic powers. Their presence underscores the different ways women cope with desperation.

To pay the mounting bills, Gloria is drawn into extra work for a pair of bankrupt writers who exploit her. The arrangement is degrading and doubles as a symbol of how far she is willing to go for money. The stress of work compounds the family's already fragile stability.

Unable to afford Miguel's dental treatment, Gloria negotiates an arrangement that allows Miguel to live with a dentist who is a pedophile, in exchange for favorable terms. The boy agrees to the sick deal under material conditions, exposing him to harm. The choice illustrates how poverty forces morally compromising decisions.

Gloria is refused sedatives at a pharmacist without a prescription, a bitter reminder of her limited options. She returns to the Madrid apartment and confronts Antonio, triggering a heated argument.

During the argument, Antonio slaps Gloria and she strikes him with a leg of ham, killing him instantly after his neck hits the sink. The murder is not immediately suspected by the police, who fail to uncover Gloria's guilt.

After the tragedy, Toni and Gloria's grandmother depart Madrid for her native village, severing ties with the city and signaling a shift in Gloria's sole remaining family.

Abandoned and broken, Gloria contemplates taking her own life, overwhelmed by debt and loneliness. She pauses when she senses a renewed resolve after Miguel returns home.

Miguel returns unexpectedly and declares his intention to take care of his mother, reuniting the family in a fragile moment of hope. His presence reframes Gloria's future and hints at a new, complicated balance.