Antonio and Emma have been separated for years, but he does not accept when Emma dates other men. Indeed Antonio proves obsessive, aggressive and intrusive, and again threatens Emma to hurt the children: little Kevin, shy and introverted, and the adolescent Valentina.
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.