Set in post-War Madrid, primarily in Maravillas and Malasaña, the plot tracks the fratricidal feud between two sisters, Eloísa and Luisita.

[1][2] Life Goes On is an adaptation of the 1960 novel El mundo sigue by Falangist author and RAE member Juan Antonio de Zunzunegui [es], which depicts a bleak vision of Madrilenian society, with Zunzunegui being, according to Fernán Gómez, "the writer who has best brought to narrative the enormous political failure of the Spanish post-war period".

[6][7] Despite the original author's acquaintance with the Francoist regime, the screenplay was banned by State censorship, and had to wait to a ministerial reshuffle (from Gabriel Arias-Salgado to Manuel Fraga) to be brought back, after some modifications.

[10] The film was nonetheless granted a negative C rating by the censorship board (on the basis of its purportedly poor aesthetics values), imperiling its commercial distribution.

[12] Mirito Torreiro of Fotogramas rated the film 5 out of 5 stars, deeming it to be "one of the most terrifying and merciless moral portraits of Francoist Spain ever made by Spanish cinema".