Giulia (Valeria Golino), a middle class fourty years lady without children, agrees to take Mario, a difficult street urchin (scugnizzo) grown in Ponticelli, a quartier at the periphery of Naples, in foster care. The presence of Mario makes Sandro, Giulia’s husband, feel so uneasy and put aside that he decides, in a few days, to return to his mother’s house. Hoping to understand the complicated emotional world of the kid, Giulia does not fix either rules or behavioural codes and, when Mario gets himself into the umpteenth scrape, the juvenile court judge (Lucia Ragni) and Adriana (Anita Caprioli), the psychologist who looks after him, decide to tear him up from Giulia and to give him in foster care to another family.