Michele criticizes the film industry and its inhabitants, and is particularly embattled with a Neapolitan director making a musical about the 1968 student demonstrations. At the same time, Michele has a creative block and struggles to finish his film titled "Freud’s Mother." Nanni Moretti’s self-inquiry into filmmaking, political ennui, and men’s relations with their mothers.
Michele Apicella, Goffredo, Mirko, and Vito are four high school friends who were on the forefront of the political protests that characterized the second half of the 1960s. Now a few years older, the four friends are no longer politically active and struggle to come to terms with their present. Intellectually marginalized and disenchanted with contemporary society, they form a collective consciousness group to try to understand what to do with themselves.