Eurídice's musical ambitions are crushed by an arranged marriage to Antenor, who controls her and dismisses her piano playing, while Guida is disowned by their father Manuel after returning pregnant and abandoned, with the parents lying to keep the sisters apart. The plot explicitly frames these events as consequences of machismo and male authority that stifle women's autonomy, dreams, and solidarity, spanning decades of hardship, intercepted letters, and missed reunions.

This approach turns the historical setting into a platform for critiquing traditional gender roles, with uncomfortable marital scenes and family betrayals serving to hammer home power imbalances rather than develop character-driven drama. Director Karim Aïnouz has stated his intent to depict the 'descolonização dos corpos femininos' and the damaging effects of machismo, drawing directly from personal family history. Prominent themes of female solidarity and chosen family, such as Guida's relationship with Filomena, reinforce the ideological core, elevating feminist messaging above incidental period elements. While no modern identity swaps occur, the deliberate foregrounding of these critiques as the emotional and narrative foundation injects progressive framing that prioritizes social commentary over entertainment, resulting in a story that feels constructed to advance a specific worldview.