Laura (Penélope Cruz) returns to the small Spanish village where she spent her childhood with her free-spirited teenage daughter, Irene, and her young son to attend the wedding of her younger sister. She’s soon reunited with a close friend from days gone by, Paco (Javier Bardem), now happily married and operating a vineyard with his wife. Spirits are high but the wedding night descends from joy to despair when Irene suddenly goes missing from her bed. In the place of the sleeping girl are a selection of newspaper clippings, all with stories about a local child who was kidnapped years earlier in the town. Suspicions mount, loved ones begin to turn on one another, and dark secrets long hidden threaten to come to light, revealing shocking truths.