This film is very much a docudrama which portrays the difficulties of Italian life circa 1963 due to the absence of a divorce law. Five scenarios with different actors portray realistic situations where divorce is clearly warranted but, because marriage was strictly in the purview of the Catholic Church at that time, which strictly forbade divorce, these people are shown to suffer the consequences in their daily lives. Italy got its first civilian divorce law in 1970.

Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.

Cousins James and Robert are in love with Susanna. When Robert and Susanna announce their engagement, James vows to ruin their happiness.

Alberto Gherardi, a sailor is wrongly suspected of murder, flied and enroll into the Foreign Legion. His unfaithful fiancee Irene goes to look for him with his young brother Enrico, but the latter is killed. Will she still manage to free her lover?

Garibaldi, after landing in Marsala, moves on to Naples. The liberals are overjoyed but the Bourbons are terrified. The so-called Baron Tucci, on a recommendation from England, arrives at the home of Count Sereni, a notable liberal. But he turns out not to be a patriot who has returned to Italy to take part in the fight but a degraded Bourbon official who has been promised rehabilitation if he can succeed as a spy. Tucci discovers old Sereni's second wife is one of his former lovers and persuades her to murder her husband so as to gain his inheritance. She does indeed cause the count to die, by withholding his heart medicine, but not before he destroys his will.

A young widow flees from her small town and moves to the seaside, where she falls for a fisherman.