Hamida dreams of studying at the faculty of commerce and live her life like any ordinary girl, but her narrow minded father wants her to stay at home and wait for her future husband. With the help of her boyfriend Hassan, who is a medical student he arranges for her to disguise herself as a man after lying to her father that his daughter had undergone a procedure and became a male.

Set against the backdrop of the 1967 Six-Day War, the movie adaptation of Naguib Mahfouz's novel follows the escapist, drug-fueled riverboat meetings of a group of frustrated Egyptians from various walks of life.