13-year-old Bartek tries desperately to hide the fact that his father beats him. Lonely and with no support from his mother or his school, tyrannized by his soccer coach, the boy finds his only friend in an old dying stray dog.
Teen Mirek begins to develop a friendship with sexually precocious Violetta, a new neighbor, leading to tension with his friends at the same time that he has problems with his mother, who has a new boyfriend.