A film about sexual awakening.....

It’s always a pleasure to rent a move from Love Film in my mother tongue as I was born in Italy. The film is based on Melissa Paranello's autobiographical novel “100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed” but I am basing my review solely on the film, as I haven’t read the book. 15 1/2 year old Melissa (heart stoppingly beautiful Maria Valverde) is in love with her classmate Daniele (Primo Reggiani) but he humiliates her and then takes her virginity. Melissa decides she will become like men, seeking only pleasure in sex and starts a journal listing all her desires. Her father is working abroad on an oil rig, her mother (Fabrizia Sacchi) is distant and busy working in her bridal shop and her beloved grandmother (the excellent Gerladine Chaplin) has a heart condition.

The film focuses on Melissa's sexual coming of age but also her determination not to be hurt by men and sex. As she explores her sexuality, there is a horrific group scene involving oral sex and a horrible encounter with an older man she met in a chat room.

In the end, she finds that men are also capable of love after a classmate declares his love for her. With this, she sees that love and sex doesn’t have to be a negative thing, if with the right person. This is a movie not only about her sexual coming of age, but also about Italian men and a commentary on the still held belief that women are sex objects and to be treated as such. Men in Italy still have a terrible time grappling with female sexuality, pigeon hole-ing women who like sex as loose.