Oppressed by her husband, her lover, and her obsessive mother, a bourgeois woman is reunited with a childhood companion at the central train station in Milan. Throughout 24 hours there, she will experience her particular descent into hell.

Four lighthearted stories set in the idyllic Italian countryside: an old grouch is befriended by a stray dog; a lonely widow spies on her newly-wed son and daughter-in-law; a German tourist tries to seduce a younger nurse. The fourth segment was cut in the US by its distributor Miramax.

被称为全球最幽默的男人之一，奥斯卡影帝罗伯托·贝尼尼在这部处女作电影中扮演一个倒霉至极的青年，他和母亲有着一段奇怪的关系，而这种关系则使他在生活中陷入无休止的混乱……