The lives of two strangers - a struggling mother and a gambling addict - who meet in tragedy. Years pass and they must come to terms with themselves and one another.
The opening scene is a woman named Ana making a phone call from a stark room. We only hear the other side of the phone call. It is her husband Marty. Ana asks him if she is going to have to do this alone and Marty tells her he doesn't need to be there, it's not going to bring him back. The meaning of this is cryptic now but is clear later in the film. Next we see Saul sitting on a bench in what looks like standard prison clothing, chained to a bench. We soon learn that Saul is on death row and scheduled for execution that day. From this point on, the movie jumps back and forth in time between scenes from a single day sometime in the not-too-distant past to a single present-day leading right up to the events we just witnessed. All the events in the movie occur in the course of one of these two days, years apart.
Saul is a storage facility manager, sharing the facility apartment with his ailing father. He is confronted by a menacing looking thug who informs him he must pay his debts by midnight or "It's over." There is just enough information in the conversation to let us know that it is a gambling debt. The thug refuses to grant Saul any leniency or extra time and when Saul asks what "It's over" means he is told "Use your imagination." Saul immediately sets out opening different storage units to find items to sell or pawn and auctions some of the units to a small group of bidders. The facility owner drives up as Saul is concluding one of these transactions. Saul tries to justify his actions by saying the units weren't paying and were due for auction but the owner immediately fires Saul anyway, telling him he has to be out of the apartment by the next day. Saul doesn't tell his father this news when he goes back to the apartment. Saul's father tells him he has medicine to be picked up at the pharmacy. Saul gets into his car to leave but it won't start so he angrily punches out the window.
Meantime we see Ana at a parent-teacher meeting where she is informed that her son, Jess, is no longer allowed to stay in his current school. According to the teacher Jess is inattentive and disruptive which Ana disputes, calling the teacher lazy. Nonetheless he will have to go to another school for special education students beginning the next week. When Ana comes out of the meeting Jess has intentionally tied his shoe in a triple knot to the bench where he was sitting, prompting an upset Ana to slip him out of his shoe and leave it behind. We see Jess tagging along with Ana to her jobs as a maid, being a minor annoyance but otherwise not causing too much trouble. When Ana informs her husband Marty, who is a teacher, that she wants to homeschool Jess he discourages the idea, causing a minor argument. They continue the discussion and get over being angry at each other, making plans to adjust their work schedules and perhaps take on extra jobs or shifts to make the arrangement work.
Saul visits a friend from whom he tries to borrow money. His friend tells him he won't do it but he will let Saul do a job for him and then pay him enough to settle his debt once the job is done. It is not discussed what this job is. His friend loans him a car and we see Saul driving and reading instructions from a folder he's been given. His inattentive driving causes him to have to slam on the brakes and a gun appears in the floorboard, either from under the seat or falling out of the glovebox. Saul gathers up the papers and gun and set them on the passenger seat. Eventually it becomes clear that Saul is repossessing a vehicle for his friend. Saul manages to break into the vehicle and get it hotwired before anyone shows up but just as he is pulling away a man runs up and slams his fist thru the window then proceeds to pull Saul out of the vehicle, a large SUV. He then beats Saul up severely while yelling that he's made his payments so "Leave me alone!" We see brief glimpses of the world from Saul's point of view that seem to indicate Saul suffered a concussion from this attack. After Saul makes his way to his friend's vehicle and is trying to leave, the upset man slams his SUV into the side of Saul's borrowed car twice. He's backing up for a third run when Saul gets out and threatens him with the gun and the man drives away.
We see Ana at a job interview, apparently with no success. During the interview we see Jess being disruptive, causing Ana to briefly lose her temper with him. Next we see Ana in a bar called Lucky Sam's, discussing with the manager about getting her old job back. He informs her he will take her back but is giving her the hardest shift to work because it has the most difficult customers. As a means of illustrating this fact, a rude customer interrupts them while they are meeting and makes lewd comments to Ana while the owner says nothing. Marty pulls up with Jess in their family car just as Ana is exiting the bar. Marty volunteers to walk home so Ana can take Jess and go to the grocery store. Jess wants to go with his dad but they both want him to go with Ana so Marty can focus on grading papers at home. Moments later, as that group departs the parking lot, we see Saul coming out of the same bar where he's been having a drink to console himself and perhaps clear his buzzing head after his terrible day. Ana pulls into the parking lot of the grocery store and has to make Jess get out of the car and go in with her, since he just wants to sit and read comics in the car while she shops. As they are walking into the store Saul pulls into the same parking lot. The pharmacy his father uses is in the same market where Ana is shopping.
We see scenes of Jess and Ana shopping together while Saul picks up his fathers prescription. Ana has finished and Jess needs to go to the restroom. Ana is filling out an employment application while she waits for Jess to come out of the restroom. She is completing the application at a desk just outside the restroom so she can watch the door while he is in there. As Saul picks up the prescription, his feels the gun in his pocket and we see an immediate indication that he has just hatched a desperate plan in his mind. A check-cashing window is just next door to the pharmacy and we see Saul eyeing it nervously as he contemplates what he's about to do. This window is right next to the restroom door. Saul walks up to the window and demands $2,000 dollars. He is obviously very nervous and being loud and this draws attention to what is happening. As he realizes this he nervously begins waving the gun around at other patrons in the store, telling them to be still and not move and yelling at the clerk to hurry. Saul reaches into the booth, ostensibly to make the attendant hurry but the gun goes off, shooting the young man in the stomach. Saul continues to yell at the young man to give him the money, which the young man is trying to do as he bleeds all over himself and the money he is handing Saul. Jess walks out of the restroom and Saul grabs him and begins backing out of the store, telling everyone not to call the cops, that he will let the boy go safely in ten minutes. We see him shove Jess into the trunk and leave. As people begin to help the young clerk who's been shot, someone starts to call 911 and Ana screams at them, saying "We can't, he said we have to wait!" Ana is hysterical and repeatedly cries out "I don't know what to do!" as the young man slowly dies while others try to help him.
Saul is speeding away while Jess is shouting and banging in the trunk. Saul gets distracted and turns around while yelling at Jess, causing him to veer into another lane and get hit. This sends him off an overpass and the car lands right-side-up on the roadway below. We hear Jess crying, coughing and beating weakly on the trunk as Saul climbs out of the vehicle. Saul briefly tries to open the trunk but runs away when he hears sirens. The police pull up and don't immediately know Jess is in the trunk because he has stopped making noise and crying out. When they receive a radio dispatch informing them there was a child in the trunk they open it to find Jess dead. Another patrol car arrives with Ana and she cries over her dead son's body.
Shift to present day and we see Ana on a road trip alone. She has a flat and has to hitch a ride to a station that will go fix her vehicle and get her going again. Ana tells the person who gives her a ride that she hates Saul and hopes he rots in hell for what he's done to her son and her family.Interspersed with these scenes are scenes of Saul meeting with a minister and not being consoled in the least by what the minister is telling him. Saul indicates he feels terrible about what happened and hopes Ana hates him. He also wants to talk to her before he dies. Now we are again shown the scene that opened the movie. Ana has just gotten into the prison and calls Marty to see if he's coming to the execution. We hear Marty's response again, "It won't bring him back." Ana asks to meet with Saul and is at first told no but when she is insistent, finally asking "Is it illegal?", her request is granted. In a room with Saul, Saul speaks first and tells her how much he regrets what he did even though he acknowledges he probably can't truly grasp the depths of her loss and grief. At this point Ana seems to have a change of heart from how she felt earlier and tells him "I have to forgive you" and quickly leaves. The final scene is of Saul as he receives the lethal injection with no witnesses in the viewing area.
