The film starts in a hazy, sun-baked and seemingly empty Rome on an August morning during Ferragosto Public holidays in Italy. A young, timid law student, Roberto (Trintignant), gazing out his window, is asked for trivial favor, a phone call, by a 40-ish man named Bruno (Gassman), who is passing on the street below at the wheel of a convertible Lancia Aurelia.