From the liner notes

Marco Bellocchio (Devil in the Flesh) directs this provocative story about strained family ties loosely based on a story by Luigi Pirandello. An affluent family in turn-of-the-century Rome bears a child, but the young wife suffers deep postpartum depression and is unable to nurse or even love the baby. When the father hires a beautiful, illiterate wetnurse and nanny for the child, an explosive situation develops.