An English teacher, terrified of her students but deeply convinced of the fundamental educational value of school, is assigned to a tough high school in Rebibbia. Her colleagues have long since lost hope of getting anything out of the last class — the one with the most difficult, withdrawn students, a jumble of urban melting pot. Amid smoke and broken families, drug dealing and first loves, stories of sex and resignation, the kids waste themselves day after day, between joints, cell phones, and prejudices, convinced that life outside of school is only hostile and closed off to them. The teacher — or rather, “Pressoré,” as everyone calls her — has three options: run away like her predecessors, not care, or step into that cage of lions unarmed. While trying in vain to understand them, she will manage to reach their hearts and give meaning both to their school journey and to her own life as a teacher.