Plot
Palermo, January 6, 1975, in the maternity ward of a clinic, nurse Gino La Monica, to re-claim the fate that made him lose the opportunity to win the first prize of the New Year's lottery, since his ticket differs by a single one number compared to the winning one (the 7 instead of the 8), decides to swap the babies in the cribs 7 and 8.
For the thirty years the two men grow up one in the family of the other, unaware of their swap. Tommaso has become a petty criminal who still lives in his mother's house, a widow, together with his sister Eleonora; while Daniele is a far behind law student, the son of an oppressive Carabinieri colonel, with a relationship to a university assistant, Marcella. Tommaso and Daniele are two deeply different individuals, from their temperament, their personal history and their social level. About thirty years later, a random meeting takes place between them, indeed, a clash: one in a hurry because he's late for an interview with the supervisor of the thesis at the university, the other one while he runs away from the police who's chase him by smuggling.
Destiny brings them together, and a series of elements leads them to realize the swap that has seen them protagonists from infants. From that moment, the awareness of being one instead of the other triggers a series of misunderstandings that seems to never end. When they finally go back to La Monica, who reveals everything to him, a new twist takes over, since while Daniele tries to reveal to his mother that he's not actually his son, the existence of a third father, the biological one of Tommaso, Tommaso "Mimmo" Barresi, who had been sentenced to a long sentence for murder.
As they are investigating, the only clue that Tommaso and Daniele discover on Barresi is a postcard that arrived a few weeks earlier from a mysterious Calabrian country, San Giovanni in Calice. The two therefore leave for the region together with Eleonora, who in the meantime had fallen in love with Daniele; This, before Tommaso reveals the truth. Once to a Franciscan convent, here they make the knowledge of Friar Antonio, from whom they come to know that Barresi died a couple of years earlier. Disappointed, the three return to Palermo where the love at first sight between Tommaso and Marcella, while Eleonora and Daniele learn to love each other as brother and sister, waiting for the propitious time to reveal the truth to their parents who, although they do not suspect anything even though having in the meantime known better following the vicissitudes of their children.
In reality, the friar encountered in San Giovanni in Calice is Mimmo Barresi, prey to remorse for his old life, who, after confronting his superior, leaves the convent determined to take on his paternal responsibilities towards his son.
