Margherita (Margherita Buy) is a director working on a social-realist film starring Italian-American actor Barry Huggins (John Turturro). Huggins consistently fails to deliver his lines properly and the fraught nature of the shoot is exasperated by unhelpful advice from Margherita to her actors. She breaks up with her boyfriend, an actor in the film, and is divorced from the father of her daughter. With her mother ailing and hospitalized, Margherita comes to feel guilty for not taking on more responsibility for her mother and reflects on her often cold relations with her family, friends and colleagues.

The film we screen has English subtitles.