Galal sends men from the mental hospital to Port Said to arrest his sister Fatma, using his political position, accusing her of insanity. Fatma escapes to the roof of the house and threatens to throw herself if someone approaches her, telling her story to the crowds around her.

An athletic young man falls for a beautiful woman with a troubled brother. Handsome Yehia (Hafez) may come from a troubled background, but he's always strived to make the best of his life. When Yehia falls for the beautiful Samia (Iman), he believes he has finally found the woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. Trouble soon arises, however, when Samia's delinquent stepbrother begins doing everything in his power to sabotage the couple's relationship

Based on the novel by Latifa al-Zayyat, which explores a middle-class Egyptian girl's coming of age against the background of the growing Egyptian nationalist movement before the 1952 Egypt revolution.