The story, told partly in flashback to 1968, concerns a clique of English public schoolboys who bully and humiliate an unpopular younger pupil (Cox) who is 'bad at games'.
The film is inspired by the Mário de Sá-Carneiro short story, where the narration is made by Professor Antena's assistant who walks by his side when he is run over in a perhaps enigmatic way.
Faithful adaptation of a story by Tomasi di Lampedusa on the encounter between a man and a mermaid, for the television series Ten Italian directors, ten Italian short stories , in which Gianni Amelio, Luigi Comencini, Carlo Lizzani participated among others.