Força de um Desejo

The setting is Paraíba Valley, Rio de Janeiro, in the nineteenth century. Higino Ventura (Paulo Betti) is a former peddler who enriched himself with shady dealings. Ventura bought the fazenda of Morro Alto ("Hill Top Plantation") in the town of Sant'Anna to win back the love of Helena (Sonia Braga), a resident of the neighbouring fazenda, Ouro Verde ("Green Gold"). Helena is currently married to the powerful Baron Henrique de Sampaio Sobral (Reginaldo Faria). Ventura is willing to do anything to win Helena back, including buying Ouro Verde and obtaining a noble title. Although Helena disregards Ventura, and is faithful to her husband, she suffers at his hands due to a family secret — Baron Henrique Sobral is aware that his younger son, Abelardo (Selton Mello) is the result of an affair between Helena and Ventura.

The couple's legitimate son, Inácio (Fábio Assunção), despises the cruel treatment that his father reserves to his mother and decides to leave the household. At Rio de Janeiro, he meets Ester Ramos Delamare (Malu Mader), a beautiful courtesan, and owner of the most famous saloon of the Court. They fall in love and live an intense romance to the point that Ester decides to leave her way of life and marry him. However, the unexpected death of his mother makes Inácio return to the plantation to stay close to his mourning family. Idalina Menezes Albuquerque Silveira (Nathália Timberg) is against her grandson Inácio's relationship with Ester due to her lower social class although she ignores Ester's job. To put an end to their relationship, Idalina falsifies a letter and convinces Ester that Inácio does not love her anymore.

Baron Sobral is devastated by the death of Helena and the feelings of guilt that torment him because he gave his wife a miserable life. He decides to start a new life, and travels throughout the court. After meeting Ester in Rio de Janeiro, he falls in love with her without knowing she is the woman who is loved by his son. The Baron convinces Ester that it is not worth throwing her life away over a heartbreak. Willing to offer Ester a new life, Baron Sobral asks her to marry him. After the wedding, Sobral and Ester return to Ouro Verde. Upon their arrival, Ester comes face to face with Inácio; victims of Idalina's schemes, the former lovers are forced to live in the same house, hiding their past to everyone.

Ester and Inácio try to avoid each other but eventually end up clarifying the misunderstanding that separated them. They decide to tell Sobral the truth but end up not doing it upon discovery that the Baron is seriously ill. Dissatisfied with the situation and knowing that Ouro Verde is facing financial difficulties, Inácio marries Alice Ventura (Lavinia Vlasak), the daughter of Higino Ventura and his wife, Barbara (Denise Del Vecchio), whose only goal is that of becoming a baroness.

At Ouro Verde, Ester becomes friends with Zulmira (Ana Carbatti), her house slave at the fazenda who, however, she treats with kindness and as if she were a maiden instead. Ester then discovers that Zulmira's family has been divided by slavers and decides to reunite Zulmira with her loved ones with help from her best friend Guiomar Pereira da Silva (Louise Cardoso), a former courtesan who moved to town to live closer to Ester, and local journalist Bartolomeu Xavier (Daniel Dantas).

Ventura continues with his plans to humiliate his rival, Henrique Sobral, and becomes obsessed with newcomer Olivia (Claudia Abreu). Snubbed by the girl, Ventura inquires about her, and he discovers that she is an enslaved woman on the run and that she is being sought by the police. As Olivia befriends Ester, more of her story is revealed — Olivia was born to a wealthy landowner and a light-skinned African enslaved woman. Her father recognized her as his daughter, and despite his family did not accept such a situation, he named her Ana Tambellini, educated her and wrote her a carta de libertad, a letter of manumission to acknowledge she was born free. Unfortunately, Olivia's father did not register the letter officially. When he died, his racist and envious eldest daughter tore the letter of manumission and wanted to make Ana a slave. For this reason, the girl ran away and changed her name to Olivia. Upon learning this from Olivia's sister, Ventura decides to deliver her to the police only to buy her back from her family in order to abuse Olivia as a sex slave. Olivia goes through Hell, unable to escape the clutches of her cruel owner despite the attempts of her boyfriend, the young doctor Mariano Xavier (Marcelo Serrado), and those of their friends Inácio and Ester, to release her from slavery.

The town of Sant'Anna is struck by tragedy: Baron Henrique Sobral is murdered during the engagement party of Abelardo and Juliana Xavier (Julia Feldens). This is the same night Inácio and Ester flee to live together after they discovered the farce of Sobral's disease — fearful of losing his wife, the Baron made the disease up as a way to prevent Ester from leaving him. Local police mobilise to arrest Inácio, the prime suspect in the death of Baron Sobral. Thus begins a race against time to spare Inácio pay for a crime he did not commit. His friends and allies get to work to uncover the identity of the real killer.

• Força de um Desejo at IMDb