Like every August, journalist Sandro, his family and acquaintances vacation on the island of Ventotene. This time, however, they find out the house next door has been rented to a lower middle class family, whose crass nature and values soon clash with their own intellectual and progressive background.
A solitary, disappointed, proud and educated old man meets and becomes the teacher of an intelligent, clumsy, middle-class, young would-be writer.
