In a hazy, dreamy, sun-baked Rome in an August afternoon the timid, precise law student Roberto (Trintignant) is asked by a 40-ish man named Bruno (Gassman) passing under his window at the wheel of a convertible Lancia Aurelia for a trivial favor: a phone call.The young man tells Bruno to come up and make the call himself; after he fails to contact his friends (he's a full hour late for the meeting they had) Bruno insists to repay Roberto's courtesy by offering him a drink. Being tired of studying for the day the young man accepts.Thus begins a cruise along the Via Aurelia (the Roman road which also gives the name to Bruno's car) where Roberto is unwilling or unable to part from his casual acquaintance despite having nothing in common with him. Bruno is loud, direct, a bit coarse and a bra