A defense counsellor and a judge are at loggerheads and the latter thinks his liver condition depends on the lawyer's ploys to get his clients acquitted.

After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.

The young Giovanni, who grew up in the provinces, arrives in Rome with the dream of becoming a famous journalist, but no newspaper is willing to hire him. Waiting for better times, the boy finds a job as a gas station attendant. One day he becomes the victim of an accident with the beautiful Giulia, who runs over him with her car. A relationship will arise between the two but Giovanni, in her naivety, has not yet understood that she works as a luxury prostitute.