Beatrice is a motor-mouthed fantasist, a self-styled billionaire countess who likes to believe she's on intimate terms with world leaders. Donatella is a tattooed introvert, a fragile young woman locked in her own mystery. The film tells the story of the unpredictable and moving friendship that develops between the two women as they flee a mental institution in search of love and happiness in the open-air nuthouse; the world of sane people.

Set in a small Sicilian town during WWII, the story centers on Renato, a 13-year-old boy with a coming of age fantasy life who falls hard for the town's ultra-beautiful twentysomething, Malena.

A young woman, after breaking off an affair with an older man, finds herself in Rome and alone. She becomes friends with a young stockbroker, but after he has an accident, she once again finds herself alone.

In 1941, Renato was 13 years old and although the world was at war, nothing ever happened in this sleepy village in Sicily. Until the day he discovered something that would change his life forever-- Malena, the beautiful young war widow who was the obsession of every man and the envy of every woman. Because of her, Renato will come to learn all of life's lessons and find himself in places he never could have imagined.