When There Are No More Stars Left to Count

Maya is a ballet dancer with Spain's National Dance Company whose professional career ends when a car strikes her and severely damages her leg. Raised in Madrid by her grandmother Olga Yarovenka, a domineering former dance instructor, Maya has devoted her life to ballet at Olga's insistence since age four, when her mother, Daria, abandoned her without explanation. The accident occurs just as Maya was on the verge of joining the American Ballet Theatre in New York, an opportunity she pursues in defiance of Olga's wishes. When Maya's doctor confirms that her leg cannot withstand professional ballet and that continuing risks permanent disability, Olga reacts with fury, calling Maya a failure just like her mother. Maya's grandfather Luis, who is blind due to diabetes, tries to comfort her and later admits he should have confronted Olga years earlier about how she raised their granddaughter.

Maya's life in Madrid unravels rapidly. She catches her boyfriend Antoine, a fellow dancer, having sex with Sofía, her replacement, and breaks up with him, alarmed to feel nothing about the loss. Her best friend Matías, a dancer in the company's corps de ballet, or ensemble of supporting dancers, becomes her sole emotional anchor. Then Olga announces she and Luis are moving to Alicante to live with Maya's uncle Andrey, renting out their apartment and giving Maya three days to leave. Luis secretly gives Maya three thousand euros, provoking an argument in which he accuses Olga of destroying first Daria and then Maya in pursuit of her own unfulfilled ambitions.

While clearing her belongings from storage, Maya accidentally breaks an old music box and discovers hidden photographs of Daria with a dark-haired young man who bears a striking resemblance to Maya, including an identical mole over his eyebrow. Daria has always claimed Maya's father was an anonymous stranger, but the photos suggest otherwise. Maya visits Fyodora, a longtime ballet mentor at the Royal Dance Conservatory, who identifies the man as Giulio Dassori, a student from a Naples ballet school who attended a summer program in Madrid. Maya finds Giulio's Instagram profile listing him at a ballet school in Sorrento, Italy. She texts Daria a pointed question about her father's identity, but Daria reads the message and never responds.

On impulse, Maya flies to Rome and takes trains south to Sorrento, arriving with no hotel reservation. Every room is booked for the Festival of Sant'Andrea. She spots Giulio on the street and follows him but loses him in the crowd. At a restaurant terrace, a Spanish bartender named Lucas serves her pizza and, later that night, finds her sleeping on a beach chair. He offers her his spare room at Villa Vicenza, a converted building owned by Catalina, a Spanish woman who moved to Italy as a child. The villa houses a tight-knit community of mostly Spanish-speaking residents, including Catalina's son Giulio, who lives on the ground floor with his husband, Dante.

The next morning, Maya encounters Giulio up close and is stunned by their resemblance. She asks Lucas to rent her the room long-term, sharing a selective version of her story but lying about why she came to Sorrento. At a welcome barbecue, she meets the full community and learns that Giulio is gay, which surprises her but does not eliminate the possibility that he is her father.

Over the following weeks, Maya builds a new life. She takes a part-time job at a flower shop run by Monica, Catalina's pregnant niece, and begins teaching ballet at Giulio's school. Giulio is impressed by her training and invites her to help choreograph a performance. Meanwhile, her relationship with Lucas deepens. He shares his own painful history: Raised under a tyrannical father, he spent ten years in a relationship with Claudia, whose family was intertwined with his. Claudia repeatedly cheated on him, became pregnant by another man, and their families tried to force Lucas to marry her anyway. When a paternity test proved the child was not his, he fled to Sorrento. Lucas encourages Maya to follow her instincts rather than live according to others' expectations.

During a thunderstorm, Maya and Lucas share their first kiss and begin an intense romantic relationship. Maya dances a duet from Romeo and Juliet with Giulio at his school, fulfilling a private dream of dancing in her father's arms. However, Lucas discovers the hidden photographs in Maya's dresser and is furious, feeling deceived. Maya confesses that she believes Giulio is her father. After a painful night apart, Lucas returns and agrees to keep her secret, though he disagrees with her silence.

The secret eventually explodes when Dante, who has observed Maya's intense focus on Giulio, confronts her, accusing her of pursuing his husband romantically. Cornered, Maya blurts out that she believes Giulio is her father. Giulio, who has entered unheard, overhears. He admits he slept with Daria when he was eighteen, hoping the encounter would resolve his confusion about his sexuality, but refuses to accept Maya as his daughter. At the same time, Lucas receives word that his father has had a heart attack. Maya accompanies him to Madrid, and they leave without telling anyone.

In Madrid, Lucas gradually reverts to the obedient, self-sacrificing role he fled two years earlier. He takes on power of attorney for the family business and works long hours, while Claudia aggressively pursues him, showing up at their apartment and calling constantly. Maya grows increasingly isolated. After Lucas fails to come home for a planned conversation, she reaches her breaking point. She buys a train ticket and heads for the station. Lucas catches up to her at the security gate, but Maya tells him he has become the person he swore he would never be again. She says goodbye, a word she has avoided her entire life because of its finality, and boards the train.

Maya travels first to Alicante, where she confronts Olga, telling her grandmother that her cruelty was never justified. She then travels to Águilas, in Murcia, where Daria lives with her partner Alexis and Maya's five-year-old half-brother, Guille. Over several emotional days, Daria confesses the full truth: She became pregnant during Giulio's summer in Madrid but never told him, using the pregnancy as an escape from Olga's control and abandoning Maya because she was a frightened teenager incapable of being a mother. Maya and Daria begin building a tentative new relationship.

Daria contacts Giulio, and after several conversations, Giulio and Dante travel to Águilas. Giulio tells Maya he has not stopped thinking about her and acknowledges she is his daughter. He reveals that his own father, Vicenzo, bore the same distinctive mole, and explains that his reluctance stemmed from the grief of losing Vicenzo, a loss from which he never recovered. He asks Maya to return to Sorrento. On the train through Madrid, Giulio encourages Maya not to give up on Lucas. Maya goes to Lucas's family home and delivers an impassioned speech, telling him she loves him and that his true home is in Sorrento. Claudia appears and tries to pull Lucas inside, but Maya says goodbye and leaves.

Maya returns to Villa Vicenza with Giulio and Dante. Catalina, whom Maya now calls "Nonna," and the full community welcome her home. She resumes her jobs, establishes regular contact with her mother and grandfather, and begins calling Giulio "Dad." On the Day of the Immaculate Conception in December, she comes home to find the apartment decorated for Christmas. Lucas is there. He tells her he had many things to resolve but has chosen to stay with her forever. In an epilogue set three years later, narrated from Lucas's perspective, he describes their life together in Sorrento, reflecting that he will love Maya until there are no more stars left to count.