A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.

Naples, 1959. Pure Mathematics professor Renato Caccioppoli, Bakunin's grandson, is a tortured soul. Recently discharged from the psychiatric hospital, left by his wife, and increasingly disillusioned with academia and the Communist Party, he lives his last days with painful detachment.

A has-been teen celebrity gets his life in order, however, upon returning to the entertainment industry, he is faced with a new, darker side to it.