A group of workers from the south of Italy live collectively in Milan, where money isn't everything, it's the only thing, in 1974.

Giovannino grows up and seeks his way, exemplary in his total and definitive absence of character. He lets himself be guided a little by everyone, without ever making a decision of his own free will. He first seduces the family servant, then runs away to Rome and tries to marry her unserious daughter to a boarding house owner. But her father arrives from Catania who distrusts her and arranges for him to marry a rich and lame girl.