After their mountain village is destroyed by an earthquake, Raoul, a gay teenager, and his older brother Danilo, an unemployed aspiring boxer, are sent to live with their estranged uncle in Primavalle, a working-class neighbourhood in the margins of Rome, hoping to find better opportunities in the city.
Primavalle is far from what the brothers were promised. The neighbourhood is plagued by unemployment and social malaise. As Raoul starts helping at their uncle’s deli stand in the local market and Danilo takes refuge in the local boxing gym, the boys begin to take very different paths. Raoul helps the market’s handsome bartender to organise a karaoke event to liven up the market, and the two fall in love during the process. Danilo gets swept up in a burgeoning grassroots movement that works to spread ultra right- wing sentiment through the neighbourhood.
Their differing experiences push the brothers further apart and past the point of violence, in a world that is crumbling around them.