In impoverished Baghdad under Saddam's dictatorship, 16-year-old Amal hopes to regain her social status at school by volunteering to find a book as a class gift for the departing literature teacher. Meanwhile, her emotionally fragile little brother becomes obsessed with the notion that a visiting uncle from America--whom he confuses with Santa Claus--will bring him toys. Ashamed never to have been able to give his son a toy, the child's father sells some more prized family possessions and buys a model car for him.
Hayam, an unmarried twenty-year-old girl, passes away, and her brothers, Zaher and Murad, discover love bites on her neck and chest just before the body washing, which hinders the completion of the washing for fear of scandal.
