Leonida Bottacin is an aging widower who runs a thriving winery in the Italian countryside. He becomes the center of a tense family web when, while involved with another man's wife, he suffers a heart attack and slips into a coma. His heirs descend upon the villa to sort out the estate: his nephew Gustavo Scarpa, his niece Italia Varotto and her husband Benito Varotto, and Italia’s sister Jole Scarpa along with her son Adone. With the exception of Adone, none of them holds Leonida in high regard, and tension quickly simmers as old grievances surface.
Benito Varotto wants to seize control of the winery and push a lucrative sale to American investors, but the plan can’t move forward while the master remains alive. He needles the deal by assuring the American buyer, known as Mr. Kitch, that Leonida won’t be around for long, crafting a fragile alliance built on deceit and calculated steps. The plot thickens as Benito enlists outside help to grease the wheels, including recruiting his ex-girlfriend, Anna, a seductive Swiss nurse, to tend to Leonida and set the stage for the supposed next heart attack.
As the machinations unfold, the family’s schemes are not limited to financial gain. Benito continues his dangerous, clandestine affairs with both Anna and [Jole Scarpa], weaving a tangled web of loyalty, manipulation, and desire that threatens to derail every financial and familial calculation. The tension mounts when a cautious note from the estate’s physician–the stern Dottor Pavan–warns that a second heart attack would be fatal, underscoring the deadly stakes at play.
The turning point arrives when Gustavo Scarpa and the others learn that the plan to hasten Leonida’s death is more than mere scheming—it's a real, active threat. Adone, who has a young crush on Anna, overhears conversations about the plot and becomes torn between anger and attraction. In a moment of raw impulse, Anna uses her influence to seduce him, but she quickly reframes the encounter, insisting she never intended to kill Leonida. The seeds of doubt loosen the grip of the conspirators as Adone’s sense of right and wrong begins to resurface.
The tension spills into the open when Mr. Kitch’s patience wears thin and the deal collapses. Seizing the opportunity, Anna and Adone join forces to reveal the heirs’ deadliest plan to Leonida, who, confronted with the truth, ejects his relatives from the villa. This betrayal redefines loyalty on the estate, and the dynamics shift in a way no one anticipated.
With the conspirators exposed and ejected, Leonida and Anna find themselves drawn to each other in a different, more genuine way. They marry and embark on a honeymoon, stepping away from the corrosive schemes of the villa’s inhabitants. Yet the reunion is not without tragedy: on their wedding night, Leonida, still in the process of fully recovering, attempts to consummate the marriage. Anna, choosing calm patience, tells him he needs more time to heal. However, old passions and frailty collide, and Leonida suffers a fatal heart attack during their reunion. As the curtain falls, even from beyond the grave, he speaks with calm finality and says he has no regrets about the life he lived and the choices he made.
The film unfolds through a tense, morally charged atmosphere where wealth, family duty, and desire intersect. It probes how greed can corrode relationships, how love can complicate justice, and how the lines between manipulation and devotion can blur in a stately, gaslit Italian villa. While the characters jockey for power, affection blooms in unexpected places, leaving a bittersweet note on a tale that blends sharp social satire with a human, emotional core.
