A  middle class Italian family finds reason to immigrate to America when  Italy is threatened by the Red Brigades’ terrorist movement of the  1970s. The family patriarch manages a transfer to the United States,  certain of better prospects and of a more secure future for his family,  but each of the family members experiences a deeper kind of upheaval,  negotiating personal losses and estrangement. A grandmother, a mother,  and a granddaughter each discovers the many insidious ways in which war  warps and defines life, even at a distance of decades.