Junior (Samuel Lange), a 9-year-old boy from a disadvantaged neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, develops an obsession with straightening his hair—deemed socially as pelo malo (bad hair)—for his school photo. As Junior yearns to discover his identity through this fixation with his hair, it leads to rising tensions with his domineering mother Marta (Samantha Castillo), whose cause of distress is rooted in fear over noticing Junior’s increasing queerness. Through Junior’s relationship with his hair, Pelo Malo explores questions about race, gender norms, sexuality, age, and class, influenced by the lasting effects of colonization which continue to permeate throughout Latin America.