Set in 1970s Rome, the fiction tracks the plight of a nuclear family, consisting of an unhappy married couple: Clara (a deeply dissatisfied expatriate Spaniard) and Felice (an abusive businessman cheating on Clara with his secretary) and their children Adriana, Gino, and Diana. Their eldest child, 12-year-old Adriana, experiences gender dysphoria; he rejects girlhood and instead goes by the name of Andrea (a primarily masculine name in Italian). Andrea develops a crush for Sara, a Roma girl who knows him as a boy. Upon a shared sense of being outsiders, Andrea and Clara grow closer.
Three well-off young men—former students at Rome’s prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno—brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat.
It’s Halloween. Camilla stands outside her school. She looks around to find her dad, but her mother Paola is the one waiting for her instead. She takes the little girl to the bakery ad tells her to get whatever she wants: today is a special day. Back home, Paola dresses her up as a zombie. The long-awaited “trick or treat” moment is coming. A hood with two holes for the eyes covers her face. Camilla walks through the streets of her town hand in hand with her mother. However, the woman has a different plan.
Elena Arvigo is an Italian actress.