Literary genre of the Plot: Drama | Milan, 2001
Main characters
Benno is a metal worker, a humble and honest man who divides his existence between his family, his job and the gym where he trains as a boxer. Benno is married to Nunzia, an elementary school teacher who is forced to give up her professorship to care for Mia, the couple's only child.
Mia is an eight-year-old girl, very beautiful and sweet-tempered, but sick with a degenerative, irreversible disease. Treatment is very expensive and the constant stress wears down the relationship between Benno and Nunzia. It is mostly Benno who cannot cope. The lack of money to care for his daughter becomes an obsession for the man.
The call to adventure
Benno rounds up with a second job: thanks to his statuesque physique and boxing training, he works as a bouncer at a famous nightclub. While on duty he notices a wealthy gentleman casually handling thousands of euros. Blinded by the need for money, he decides to pull off his first robbery: in the bathrooms of the disco, he attacks the man and takes his wallet, but in the scuffle, unintentionally kills him. No one noticed him, so he walks away, leaving the corpse in the toilet.
The Conflict
As Benno returns home, fate plays a trick on him: he is robbed in turn. The thug is armed, takes his money and flees, but Benno notices a detail: a tattoo he has seen before, although he does not remember on what occasion. Upon returning home, Nunzia realizes that her husband is in shock and manages to get him to tell her everything.
Benno's confession triggers a reaction from the woman, who immediately leaves the house with her daughter to return to her parents. Benno does not have the strength to stop her. The days that follow are a blur of painkillers, alcohol, and the obsession with the embezzled money. Then, it happens that at the factory, during the cafeteria shift, Benno sees the tattoo again: it belongs to Achilles, a union member he had met months earlier.
The key
Benno follows the worker and attacks him in his house, in order to regain possession of the money. In the scuffle Achilles dies, and as Benno searches the apartment for the money he discovers a bedridden old woman: Achilles' mother, the motive for his robberies. Gripped by remorse Benno flees but after a few hours the police arrest him for the double murder: a camera had framed him. Translated to jail on the first visit of the lawyer he will learn that Mia had passed away a week earlier.
The alternatives
The plot is easily modified in dozens of variations. One can intervene in location, time, trades. One can even avoid the murders and create the conditions for a happy ending to occur with a positive and hopeful message. con un messaggio positivo e di speranza.
