In this black comedy, the men in a lovely mansion slowly give in to a kind of terminal sloth after they are freed from the need to actually work. The father takes to his bed after his hernia acts up and never leaves it. Of his three sons, only one wants to do much about leaving, and he does in fact cross the front threshold of the house with his lover, who is also the maid. However, before he has gotten very far, he is very tired, and goes to sleep where he stands. One of the sons outdoes them all by sleeping literally all the time. He is not in a coma -- he is just very, very lazy and tired. Some critics have viewed this film as a sharply delineated social satire.

In the aftermath of the Trojan Wars, Queen Hecuba takes stock of the defeated kingdom. Her son has been killed, and his widow, Andromache, is left to raise their son, Astyanax, alone. Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, fears being enslaved by her Greek masters, while Helen of Troy risks being executed. Astyanax also becomes the focus of the Greeks' attention as the last male heir of the Trojan royal family.