It tells the story of two men who meet and fall in love in lates Rome , only to be separated unexpectedly. In , during the Years of Lead in Italy, Pietro, a shy medical student, sees a film at the Nuovo Olimpo theater, which is run by the exuberant Titti and used by gay men for cruising.
There, he meets Enea, a film student, and there is an immediate attraction between them. Enea invites Pietro to have a sexual encounter in the bathroom, but Pietro is hesitant. Later, Enea tells his friend and lover Alice about the encounter, and she gives him a key to her grandmother's unoccupied apartment. The next day, Pietro and Enea meet at the theater and have sex at the apartment.
They spend the night together and develop feelings for one another, arranging to meet up at the Nuovo Olimpo the next day. Pietro tells Enea that he booked a reservation for them at a trattoria , but he needs to visit his mother at the hospital first. While Pietro is gone, an anti-fascist protest outside becomes unruly and havoc breaks out in the theater.
Titti helps Enea escape the theater and he goes searching for Pietro, but to no avail. As they hadn't exchanged phone numbers or addresses, they lose all contact. A decade later, in , Enea is a director who is famous from his most recent film, a fictional depiction of his brief romance with Pietro.
Pietro, meanwhile, is married to a woman named Giulia. Without knowing the director, Pietro and Giulia see Enea's film, and Pietro is overcome by the similarities between the film and his own life. Giulia is puzzled and suspicious about his reaction to the film.
