Fernanda and her friends. Fernanda – passionate teacher, aspiring writer – then Piera, Florence, Maria, Nina. Young women on the Milan scene of aperitifs and publishing: jobs, love affairs, opportunities. Above all, friendship. Likeable, intelligent and cultured, these friends are hunting. Hunting their future, their quota of happiness. When they take turns eating dinner together - omelettes, falafel and tonka beans – in their cosy kitchens, their favourite subject is men. And in particular, Giorgio, an eccentric, psychotic, alcoholic computational logician. Practically crazy. A madman who’s just gotten hooked up with Fernanda. Our Fernanda who left Sicily to take refuge in a one-room nest with Pompeian red walls where she writes, cooks, reads, restores herself and makes plans. Giorgio has broken the harmony of those days and, besides that, he talks like an Asimov robot, pops pills a mile a minute and continually humiliates her. Their relationship, to say the least, is a real mess: fights, misunderstandings, break-ups and make-ups. An eternal push-pull. Right, a normal love affair. So much so that if Florence votes against it, Piera tells her to hang on. Obviously, Fernanda hangs on. Giorgio isn’t Prince Charming and she’s fully aware of that. But if one cannot command the heart, then also certainly not desire. Giorgio’s eyes are jet black and incredibly beautiful, and Fernanda is crazy about him just as he is, even with all his unresolved psychological derangement. So she waits, puts up with him, tries to understand. And she runs from him, gets angry, goes back, resists, gives in. Because every so often she feels loved and happy. Ironic, intelligent, highly alcoholic, the love story between Fernanda and Giorgio is not about ordinary female masochism. Rather it is the eternal clash between reason and sentiment that winks an eye at us and forces us to choose which Fernanda we want: lucid and proud or tender and welcoming?