Summer 1998. The gala night of a beauty contest held in a seaside resort, where "Miss Queen of Hearts" is about to be elected, is ruined by a sudden and windy storm that gets on Ercole Preziosi's nerves, the entertainment manager who has organized and now hosts the show. The audience is restless and Ercole insults them, breaking off and fleeing on his old Mercedes, where his chaffeur Nicola, a twenty-seven year old guy from Sicily, is waiting. In the car, as usual, Nicola tells Ercole some jokes to try and relax him.
Ercole is married to Eva, a Russian woman he met twenty years before. They have a seventeen year old daughter, Maruska. He loves them very much, but his work keeps him away from home quite often. Eva and Maruska accuse him of being absent-minded and superficial towards them.
Ercole's entertainment agency, "Kings and Queens", has a second rate choice of artists whose shining star is the talented comedian Rudy Sciacca. Ercole has organized a show for the closing night of a business convention and is anxiously waiting for Rudy to arrive when he receives a phone call informing him that his star is in hospital due to a very serious car crash.
To save the show, Ercole throws chaffeur Nicola on the stage: unexpectedly, the young man shows some talent and is well received by the audience. Ercole asks him to carry on performing and organizes a tour in small venues and discos.
Nicky Renda starts to attract press attention as a "sexy-comedian" and Ercole stops working for his other artists to concentrate on his "winning horse". When TV calls, offering Nicky a rich contract, Ercole's presence becomes an embarrassment to the young star.
Ercole is then left aside, but endures the insult with no reaction. However, when he discovers that Nicky has a relationship with his daughter, his anger finally explodes.