Emma (Isabella Ferrari) e (Antonio Valerio Mastandrea), casados, com dois filhos, se separaram há cerca de um ano. Antonio vive sozinho na casa onde morava com a mulher, enquanto Emma voltou para a casa de sua mãe, levando consigo as crianças. Numa noite qualquer, uma patrulha é chamada no edifício e a polícia está se preparando para arrombar a porta do apartamento de onde alguém ouviu provir tiros.Em um acirrado desenrolar de acontecimentos, conta as vinte e quatro horas que precedem este momento.
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.