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.

Actor and singer on the decline, Sergio, alcoholic, goes adrift. His son, Simon, undertakes to make a film with and on him, to try to bring him back to life, "by force with others"