A trainee nurse, Lucy, has just been dumped by her boyfriend for reasons unexplained, and won't get through her exams without the help of a little speed. The local dealer sells her on the much more addictive crack-cocaine, which soon drives her into debt, and she predictably ends up as one of his mules.
At Buenos Aires, she's due to bring back a couple of suitcases that have been loaded 'in a new way' to avoid detection, though the police and customs have been suitably taken care of anyway. So - nothing to worry about there. Until there's a little change of plan, that is. A diversion to Cuzco that she doesn't like the sound of. Sure enough, waiting for her flight home at B.A., she gets arrested. The drugs had been found after all at check-in. But she's released on bail because of her unborn baby. (First we've heard of that one. Was it by the boyfriend; if so, was that why he walked out?)
Desperate to avoid a 25-year sentence, she takes the escape route they're least likely to suspect, swimming across the river to Brazil, and claiming to police that she'd been robbed of her passport. Somehow her criminal record doesn't come up on the screen, and she's able to acquire a new passport at the embassy. At the airport, the customs are clearly not buying her story, but a mysterious phone-call changes their mind, and she flies home, only to be arrested again on an international warrant, against which she has appealed as the film ends.
Phew, what a mess - almost as scrambled as her mind. What happened to the drugs in the end? Was she paid in advance? Was she still taking crack during the run? Did she drop-off some of the drugs at Cusco? How did she earn money in Brazil? Who made the mysterious phone-call at the airport? And what about the baby?
It's certainly a morality tale for our times. At the Brazilian border, she says "I did what I had to do", while lying her way all over South America. All the codes are there. A nurse (caring earth-mother, virtuous victim). The dealer as doctor/priest. The acceptability of drug-taking and dealing. The rule of law, meaning gang law, where you count on police corruption and inefficiency to stay out of jail... I've got a feeling we've only seen one side of this story.