Emma y Antonio, casados y con dos hijos, llevan casi un año separados. Antonio vive solo en la casa que compartía antes con su mujer, mientras que Emma ha vuelto con su madre, llevándose a los niños. De repente, una noche, alguien llama a un coche patrulla y la policía irrumpe en el apartamento, donde se han oído disparos. En una rápida sucesión de acontecimientos, la película narra las 24 horas anteriores a ese momento, la vida - sencilla pero sin embargo excepcional - de un grupo de gente sobre el que planea en todo momento una sombra.
Alarmed by the news that for each working Italian there's a retiree, 70-year-old Walter decides to do his part by helping "a young person who's working for him." He chooses Piero, a model worker and upstanding citizen so shy that he can't bring himself to declare his feelings for night-time street cleaner Francesca. Walter starts giving him some old-hand advice on the matter.
A shepherd from the mountains of a remote Asian region travels to Southern Italy, in love with what he saw on Italian television. There, he accidentally ends up in a holiday resort, where he's treated like a guest for a whole day, thus cementing his assumption that all the opulence and kindness he saw on TV were true.