Michele is a young filmmaker frustrated by the lack of understanding his work receives and at odds with the film industry, especially a colleague making a musical on the '68 student protests. As he struggles to complete his own film about Freud's mother, Michele's insecurity and creative block manifest in a series of unsettling nightmares. Nanni Moretti's self-inquiry into cinema, political ennui, and men's relationships with their mothers.

Yerma wants a child but with her dispassionate husband has failed to conceive. On the other hand, Victor courts her but the sense of caste and honor prevent from surrendering to him.

A mute mother stands by idly as her young children radicalise as a result of a society that thrives on conflict and manipulation. As she is drawn to a group of political activists, her absence allows her children to become increasingly extreme in their behaviour and lethal games they play.

While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.