Mauro is 33, he has two degrees at university and no future. He lives in a small town under the volcano Etna with his parents. He tries hard to enter as a teacher at the university but the job is given to a goon with strong connections. On top of that his girlfriend Laura leaves him for another guy.
Unable to use his talents, Mauro gradually starts "loosing it", and starts behaving strangely and developing maniac depressive manias. He starts to study worldwide the market of peas. He wants to get in shape, so maybe Laura comes back to him; he goes and take lambada lessons to please Laura obtaining the opposite effect, he starts to play the saxophone at home, pestering the maid because she doesn't do her job properly.
His parents are exasperated. His father tries continuously to find him job interviews that Mauro pourposely fails considering them too low profile.
The same he does with dates. His best friend Pino tries to distract him from his obsession with Laura organizing dates that Mauro pourposely makes run away. He doesn't really want another girl. He wants Laura back.
Now Mauro becomes a very busy citizen and he starts up a housemade newspaper to denounce the poor behaviour of local administrator, creating a big problem between his poor father and the mayor of his small town.
Finally a phone call arrives from "up north", and he can go join his uncle in Turin and learn the sectrets of mechanics in his garage. This time Mauro is forced to leave, but the experience will reveal itself as a total fiasco. The only good thing for him in Turin is his old aunt visiting from Montreal.
Back to Sicily, Mauro's behaviour turns even stranger. Now his need for justice takes him to concentrate on the director of the local bank who interrupts the mortgage to the charming young couple with kid who lives in front. They are forced to leave and go back to their parents. For Mauro it is too much. So he decides to take action against the bank manager...
He crashes his small Fiat Panda against the manager big BMW. That takes him straight to the shrink, who declares him in need of psychiatric treatement.
So Mauro is back home with mom and dad, giving Economics lessons to a non-gifted student. Future life seems very gloomy to Mauro... But life is unpredictable: his old aunt from Montreal eventually dies and leaves him a fortune.
Two years later we see Mauro in Canada in front of his business: a large firm. Now he is big in pea business...