Bruno Salvati is a director of little success, fresh from the separation from his wife Anna with whom he had two children, the twenty-year-old Adele and the seventeen-year-old Tito. Following a sudden illness, Bruno is diagnosed with a disease that requires the intervention of a donor. All his family relationships are called into question, including that with his father Umberto, the custodian of a secret that will force Bruno to embark on a journey in search of someone who can help him.

Dora, driven away from her town by malicious gossip following her first love affair, has a series of short-lived adventures until she falls in love with Nino, a small time crook. In Parma, a police officer courts her but she keeps thinking of Nino.