Cesare Settembre is a twenty-six year old studying law to follow in the footsteps of his lawyer father. On the eve of his last exam, Cesare falls ill with depression and begins to remain secluded at home, completely deprived of strength. The only person to try to help him is his friend Antonio, while his mother seems more concerned with taking care of the strange plant she keeps in her room, his father is only interested in his son's university career. To find a purpose in life, Cesare falls in love with Milena, Antonio's girlfriend, but in the meantime his family falls into chaos.

1960. Vincenzo is an enterprising and determined young man who, at the age of just eleven, decides to run away from a small village in Basilicata, abandoning his family to take refuge in the capital with his shoemaker brother. Against the backdrop of an Italy in the midst of its economic boom, he begins working in a bar and graduates from elementary school. Everything seems to be going well, but a sad discovery turns his life upside down. Vincenzo seeks further redemption for himself and his brother by opening a business and thus consolidating his social standing in the capital, but always with the regret of not having his family of origin, especially his brother Giovanni, close by. He returns to his hometown as a grown man, to the bedside of his dying father, bringing with him the memories of a child, a man who was a winner for his people, but deeply defeated and a victim of regret for a life lived halfway.