Italy. "I'm not nostalgic about our childhood: it was full of violence. It was life, full stop: and we grew up with the obligation to make it difficult for others before others made it difficult for us." Elena and Lila live in a poor district of Naples in the late 1950s. Although both are gifted academically, academic prowess is not to be their fate. Lila drops out of school to work with her shoemaker father. Elena, supported by her teacher, goes to secondary school. The paths of the two friends cross and drift apart, against the backdrop of a dark and turbulent Naples.