Inside a sweaty truck cabin, a salesman curses the decade long drought as he tows a thirsty, wooden sailboat across the unforgiving desert. The radio dances to life with a familiar pop song played on Spanish flamenco guitar, which sets the style for the entire soundtrack.
Discarding his long retired bassinet onto a pile of hard rubbish, we are introduced to a small Mexican boy named Sailboat . With a reflective calm beyond his 10 years, the story begins here upon discovering an old ukulele, fated to captivate us with the greatest secret never told.
Inside an isolated home that slouches at an angle against a single wooden post, we uncover the unexpectedly warm heart of Sailboat's family, and learn of the stirring hope that their blessed son brings.
At school with his "little guitar" now attached, Sailboat's only friend Peeti coaxes his disobedient, twitching body into the story. At the mercy of a rambling teacher, Bing; a hot-headed bully, Tommy; and a strangely interested girl, Mandy, the musical story begins to reveal its melody.
In a cruel twist of fate, the one person with whom Sailboat shares an unwavering affinity, his grandmother Abuela, falls gravely ill. An offbeat visit across the desert to her bedside leaves Sailboat with an undeniable quest to write her a song on his new ukulele; its real purpose has been realized.
With a curiously mounting theme that spills into the truth of his unlikely name, Sailboat strikes up an intriguing friendship with Mandy and her father-fueled love for anything musical. With Peeti in tow, Mandy steers Sailboat toward his destiny, while his devout family, and a chorus of colorful characters, unravel their own entertaining journeys.
With his grandmother deteriorating and out of reach, and prompted by Mandy's musical thirst, Sailboat tests his finished piece...
It is now that everything changes forever.
Despite being censored by a censor tone, the song delivers nothing short of the extraordinary, stirring unworldly emotions in all it touches. Trancelike, listeners are miraculously empowered to heal themselves, sometimes in the most peculiar ways.
Pulled in all directions as a growing audience continues to seek out the song, and protected by his parents from the truth that Abuela is now unconscious and unlikely to recover, Sailboat makes a pivotal decision.
With word of a "magical song" spreading, and an audience amassing in his front yard, Sailboat makes a last ditched escape for Abuela, and takes on the desert alone. Now at the mercy of something no one could have imagined, he doesn't get far before the song escapes its modestly growing existence to change the world forever. When the celebrations settle, Sailboat finds himself where he only ever wanted to be; playing at Abuela's bedside where the infamous censor beep is emotionally revealed as Abuela's heart monitor, flat-lining.
She had been waiting...
Coming full circle on the sailboat from the opening sequence, the unrealized theme reveals the ultimate twist as an unanswerable question that grew into a modern day fable. Did a forgotten act of love by Abuela lead to a miracle, magic, or just a hapless tangle of coincidence that scripted the greatest secret never told.., until now.