Based Alberto Moravia' novel, L'Ennui tells the story of a philosophy teacher (Berling) who has recently separated from his wife and is having a mid-life crisis. Restless with the need to do something with his life, he meets a young woman. Feeling secure in his lack of affection and in his intellectual superiority, he coldly develops a strictly sexual relationship with the quiet, simpleminded, and functional Ccilia. His curiosity increases and surprisingly grows into an obsession as he urgently seeks to comprehend Ccilia's uncomplicated nature while questioning his inability to possess more than her body. Obsessed with his need to possess and tormented by her inability to respond to him, he becomes increasingly violent in a quest he can't name, a quest that slowly begins to undermine his certainties.