Carlo and Margherita: a happily married couple in their mid-thirties, perfectly attuned to each other's restlessness. They are in love, but they also harbour desires that stray beyond the confines of their bedroom. Carlo longs for the quiet beauty of one of his students, Sofia; Margherita fantasises about her physiotherapist, Andrea. But it is love, with its unassuming power, which ultimately pulls them from the brink, aided by Margherita's mother Anna, a wise, proud seamstress hiding her own disappointments. But after eight years of repressed desires and the birth of a son, when the past resurfaces in the form of books sent anonymously, will love be enough to save them?