Jep Gamberdella (Toni Servillo) - handsome, charming man, despite the first signs of aging - take full advantage of life. The idea for elegant dinners and receptions, where - as a well-known journalist and inveterate seducer - is always welcome. In his youth he wrote a novel that earned him a reputation for literature and frustrated writer. On the terrace of his Rome apartment overlooking the Colosseum seems acceptable, in which "the human apparatus" - as was the title of his novel - is undressed naked. Weary of their lifestyle, dreams Jep time to once again take up the pen.