In Naples, Professor Bellavista is a retired man, passionate about the philosophy and thought of Ancient Greece. Every day, in his luxurious apartment, he teaches his lessons of life to the poor-nothing (his friends), who are dazzled by his reasoning. One day, however, the quiet life of the building of Bellavista will be disturbed by the arrival of a director of Milan. Between Naples and Milan there contrast, because the Neapolitans are accustomed to enjoy a quiet life, always based on the "philosophy of pleasure and delay", while the northern Italians are very strict and punctual.

Three episodes about the relativity of time.

An Italian laborer foils anyone who tries to stop him from selling espresso on the Milan-to-Naples night train.

Life in Naples is tough, so Neapolitans invent ways to get by. Whatever works, conning mostly, tricking the IRS, the university, the landlord, cruise ship passengers, even conning victims three times with the same ruse.

During a debate in Naples' town hall in the early 1980s, Pasquale Picone, a former steel-worker who has recently lost his job, sets himself on fire in front of the Municipal Council.

Everything revolves around a musical theater production staged by a modest Sicilian director who has to direct young inmates at the juvenile detention center in Nisida. However, the rehearsals, the performance at the San Carlo Theater in Naples, and the real and touching events of the city alternate without any consistency.

A doorman and a street cleaner, intrigued by the passage of Halley's Comet, ask Professor Bellavista if they can observe the sky through his telescope. The two, instead of observing the comet, end up framing a window of the apartment opposite and believe they have discovered a crime. So they set out in search of the body.

Kwaku, a young African medical student, arrives in Italy where he is to meet his brother Job (nicknamed Pummarò.) This one is a tomato picker in the Naples region and works in extreme conditions to be able to pay his brother's studies. But to Kwaku's dismay, Job has disappeared. The young student then decides to do everything he can to trace missing Pummarò.

Luca, a young boy of eleven, lives with his grandfather in a majestic house in Rome. Learning that his mother, whom he believed to be dead, now lives in Argentina, he goes to look for his portable computer, Toto.