Days after the death and funeral of his high-powered army father, children's book author Gianni Orzan (Sergio Rubini) meets the suspicious Gianni Bogliasco (Bruno Ganz), who proceeds to recite an uncomfortable amount of accurate knowledge about the author's life. Gianni ends up running into Bogliasco "accidentally" a number of times, until Bogliasco drops a bombshell: Gianni's father was not an Italian General as he was made to believe, but was instead a Russian-born agent of the KGB who murdered an Italian official and assumed his victim's identity. As Gianni begins to question his memories of his deceased father, as well as his nearly nonexistent relationship with him, his wife Anna reveals another devastating secret -- she has been cheating on him. In the span of days, everything Gianni has taken for granted has been destroyed by lies, thus forcing him to re-examine nearly all aspects of his life in order to determine what is true and what isn't.
~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide