The film is about an old fashioned Italian with moral values of the 1930/40's , who has to find a wife in the modern, woman's liberated society of Australia of the 1960/70's.
In this winsome comedy, an entitled Economics professor pursues a tactic to buy an ailing widow’s mansion for nothing, but he quickly realizes that his seemingly foolproof strategy won’t be as easy as he thought.
Broke, and armed only with his sense of humor, middle-aged Gianni lives with his mother in their old apartment. The debts are mounting, but if Gianni looks after the building manager's mother during the Ferragosto, a mid-August holiday, all will be forgiven.
In 18th-century Rome, impish aristocrat Onofrio del Grillo amuses himself by playing pranks on all sorts of people — his reactionary family and fellow nobles, the poors, the French occupiers trying to modernize society, and even the Pope himself.
Sara and Nicola are married and in love. Their lives seem to be perfect: they have an angelic six-year-old daughter, thriving careers and a stable marriage. The birth of their second child, which disrupts the family balance, leads to tragicomic scenarios.