A couple of bourgeois intellectuals, Carlo and Silvia, have been married for twenty years. While she lives in their flat in Rome, he spends most of his time in the country house where he writes his books, openly living with his younger lover, Lù. In return, Carlo has long accepted that her wife may have lovers, but her volatile relationship with a young neo-fascist suddenly rekindles his jealousy.
Pasquale Baudaffi, on amnesty, comes out of prison and starts looking for a job with the help of his cousin Gaetano. But first he goes to what was once a brothel, but, unbeknownst to our hapless hero, has been taken over and rented as a dental office. Pasquale finds himself at the center of endless misunderstandings. He tries to be a gamekeeper but that's not okay, he tries to be a waiter in a bar: he immediately gets his orders wrong and he is fired. His performance as a garage keeper was negative. The very latest experience is in an electronics company but its insertion into the futuristic mechanism triggers the craziest complications. The encounter with a lost dog allows him to get to know his mistress and thus discover the woman of his life.
Rossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting events at will, presenting everything in a highly undramatic fashion. The film begins in the time of the Old Testament, allowing Rossellini to present the story of Jesus in its ancient, historic context.