Bulgarian English teacher Nadezhda (Margita Gosheva) has had her wallet stolen by one of her students and she has less than a hundred stotinki in her account while she waits seemingly in vain for the transfer of the fee owed to her for translation services. When Nadezhda comes home one day to discover that their house will go up to auction within three days because her husband (Ivan Barnev, I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND) has been spending the money for the house payments of several months on a new gear box for the trailer he has been trying to fix for a quick sale. With her husband not concerned enough about the prospect of losing their home - and then incredibly unhelpful as she appeals to officials for help - Nadezhda starts to realize just how precariously they have been living. Too proud to beg her father and his chakra-obsessed third wife for the money, she eventually is reduced to borrowing from a loan shark. When the translation house goes out of business and the boss disappears with the payroll, Nadezhda's temporary victory rings hollow as she must now offer up the house and her family jewelry as collateral to pay back the loan. The loan shark criminally undervalues these and prefers instead other forms of payback. As she struggles with compromising her integrity in various manners, Nadezhda also tries to discover who stole her wallet (and more money subsequently) and impress upon her class the values of honesty and personal responsibility; but she may not have a leg to stand on when she does catch the thief. Although the confounding events in the story pile on in an almost contrived fashion, the film is less interested in exploiting the protagonist's circumstances than in showing her pushed to her limits as she tries to do the right thing. Her pride gets in the way of an easy solution, but viewers can empathize with her resentment as she is expected to "humble" herself to (and in front of) people who are either responsible for her problems or are otherwise unhelpful. Gosheva drives the film and, even if it seems as if things have finally gone her way, she is internally and quietly devastated as the credits role.