Naples. Vincenzo is a young unemployed whose existence is devoid of stimuli, dictated by laziness, boredom and hypochondria. Unlike his mother Assunta, busy with those household chores that bother him perennially, his sister Patrizia, married and with a dependent daughter, and his brother Alfredo, an actor always around in his theatrical performances, Vincenzo escapes any kind of task or responsibility, even on a human level.
This last aspect is particularly evident towards his friend Tonino, who seeks in him a shoulder on which to cry after being left by his girlfriend, finding however only trivial and indecisive answers, and an apparent compassion that barely conceals indifference.
The opportunity for a turning point for Vincenzo could come from the meeting with Anna, an old schoolmate of Patrizia who met on the occasion of the funeral of one of their relatives. After a shy approach, between the two begins a relationship in which, however, the one who seems to throw herself more headlong is she, eager for love and sweetness after a sentimental experience that ended badly.
Vincenzo, on the other hand, does not seem to live the story with the same passionate involvement as his girlfriend, precisely because he does not erase his chronic defects. And he appears grumpy and indolent in Anna's eyes in a variety of situations, especially when Tonino, increasingly depressed, barely hides his suicidal intentions by going to a train station late in the evening where he remains in the rain thinking about the gesture of jumping under a train, moreover with a snap knife in his pocket.