[1] For her performance Cecilia Dazzi won the David di Donatello for best supporting actress.

[2][3] Giulia is getting everything ready for the Christmas Eve party she always hosts for her family, helped by her unmarried sister Sandra.

It is Giulia who has to go to the railway station to collect her brother Sergio and his wife Lucia, whose relationship is on the brink.

A tense party continues without Giulia, who has bumped into Fausto, an old flame, while Paolo left on his own is being comforted by Sandra.

For the New Year, everybody else comes down to Trani, where Giulia's separated parents are having a secret tryst in a hotel closed for the winter.