Rome, 1990. The night Italy's national football team is eliminated from the World Cup by Argentina on penalty kicks, a well-known film producer is found dead in the Tiber river. The main suspects for the murder are three young aspiring screenwriters, who–promptly taken to the police–start to tell their version of the story.

Two mental patients with opposite personalities ditch their Tuscan hospital and embark on an unpredictable exploration of the real world.

In a shabby residence on the coast between Livorno and Pisa, Mario, known as "Il Cormorano", a grumpy and disillusioned young man, works as a plumber to scrape together the sum necessary to realize his dream. He wants to join his uncle Piero in America to become an underground musician. His story is intertwined with that of Nevio, the cynical manager of the residence, of Gabriella, his naive and dreamy lover and of the maid Gaia who behind has a past as a drug addict, with whom Mario has a relationship of hate love. But reality is not as rosy as dreams: