[2] The film, although uncredited, is based on the 1966 short story "L'Autoroute du sud" by Julio Cortázar.

[3] In a main thoroughfare on the outskirts of Rome, thousands of motorists are stuck in terrible traffic jam for twenty-four hours.

In a stretch of road there is a variety of characters whose behaviour becomes strange.

There is a selfish and hypocritical entrepreneur in a luxury car; a young hippie girl harassed and then raped by some dandies and a family from Naples on the way to Rome to abort their daughter.

The day the traffic jam clears, the entrepreneur hires the girl from Naples for a record company in exchange for a sexual service.