Maria Helena, a hard-working, witty woman of fifty, lives in a busy building in downtown São Paulo. Her past comes back to haunt her and she must return to her hometown, a region abandoned by the mining ban inside Minas Gerais to face the family that once injured her and abandoned her.

Inspired by the Christian tale of the "prodigal son", De Volta, shows the journey of Maria Helena after she discovers that her mother is very sick and wants to see her before she dies. She reluctantly makes the journey back to São João da Chapada, the small, archaic village where she was born, after decades of absence, and on the long road has a chance to heal old scars.

Maria Helena, her sister Valdete and her mother Maria, give us an insight into the complexities of relationships between women in a society structured within the patriarchal canon.