 Roberto has a new job as the teacher at a nursery school. The first child he meets is Gianluigi, who s mute. Roberto is spirited, bringing a TV into class, then a donkey. He takes children on an unscheduled field trip to their fathers  plant. He dates Isabella, the mother of one of his students, and soon she s pregnant. He s moody about it, so Isabella leaves for her family s abandoned movie theater in Sardinia, but not before Roberto is briefly arrested and questioned about past radical activity. He takes ten children, including Gianluigi, to Sardinia for the baby s birth, and there, surrounded by the sea, the mother of us all, he and Gianluigi play out their surprising bond.