Carmen Vega, 27, is a conservator at a major Los Angeles museum — her speciality is the restoration of damaged paintings, the meticulous work of recovering what was there before the damage. She is brilliant at it because the work requires the specific patience of someone who can sit with something broken for months without rushing to fix it. When the museum acquires a newly discovered 17th-century Mexican painting with an unusual provenance, Carmen's restoration work uncovers a hidden image beneath the surface — and a story that connects, impossibly, to her own family history. The film is a slow-burn psychological drama about the relationship between what is visible and what is hidden, with the painting serving as both mystery and mirror.
