Adept at dissecting marriage as an essentially no-win institution, Luigi Comencini applies his directorial scalpel here through the viewpoints of ten-year-old Eugenio (Francesco Bonelli) and his parents. Giancarlo (Saverio Marconi) is a father who loves his wife, Fernanda (Dalila Di Lazzaro), and his son, but what he wants out of life is not necessarily compatible with the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood. Likewise, Fernanda is torn between a more liberated existence and what she understands to be social restrictions. After Eugenio is abandoned on a road in the middle of nowhere by an irritated friend, a sequence of events is set in motion that highlights the underlying problems in his family.