Melissa P. (2005)

An adolescent girl, living with her mother and her grandmother, will have her first sexual experiences in a heavy and excessive way.

Director:

Luca Guadagnino

Writers:

Barbara Alberti (screenplay), Cristiana Farina (screenplay)

Stars:

María Valverde, Letizia Ciampa, Primo Reggiani

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
María Valverde	...	Melissa P.
Letizia Ciampa	...	Manuela
Primo Reggiani	...	Daniele
Fabrizia Sacchi	...	Daria
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Nonna Elvira
Nilo Zimmerman	...	Marco (as Nilo Mur)
Claudio Santamaria	...	Custode del museo
Carlo Antonelli	...	Prof. Italiano
Pier Giorgio Bellocchio	...	Istruttore di nuoto
Marcello Mazzarella	...	Chiunque
Elio Germano	...	Arnaldo
Alba Rohrwacher	...	Clelia
Davide Pasti	...	Leo
Francesca Madaro	...	Livia
Esmeralda Prete	...	Titti

Storyline

Melissa lives with her mother and her grandmother in Sicily. She has a close relationship with her grandmother, a heavy smoker, who seems to be the only person in the world who understands Melissa. Melissa's father lives in another country. One day Melissa and her friend go to a party at a school friend's home. While there, Melissa meets Daniele, a boy from the school, and has her first sexual experience. The experience is far from being what Melissa always has dreamed it would be, because Daniele forces her and later forgets her. However, Melissa has fallen in love with Daniele. Back at school, when Melissa tries to get Daniele's attention, he barely remembers her. He takes advantage of Melissa's feelings for him, convincing her to have sex with him whenever he wants. When Melissa discovers Daniele's true motivations, she takes revenge by having even wilder sexual experiences with him and other boys. She even begins keeping a diary to document her sexual experiences. Melissa's mother...

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Plot Keywords:

controversy | teenager | teenage sex | sex scene | orgy | 

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Taglines:

You have to lose yourself before you can find yourself

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Italy Spain

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

18 November 2005 (Italy)

Also Known As:

100 Escovadas Antes De Dormir

Filming Locations:

Italy

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$606,934 (Italy), 2 December 2005

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bess Movie, Pentagrama Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film's title, Melissa P. (2005), is derived from author Melissa Panarello's source novel, "One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed."

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Quotes

Nonna Elvira: Paradise is where I am, your grandpa used to say.

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Connections

Spoofed in Ti stramo: Ho voglia di un'ultima notte da manuale prima di tre baci sopra il cielo (2008)

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Soundtracks

Cousteau's Zodiac
Written by Axel Pi (as Axel Pi Caballero), Jesús Senra (as Jesús Martín Senra) and Marc Herreros Ros
Performed by Sidonie

User Reviews

Weak

'Melissa P.' is far too weak and clichéd to be a good film. Upon enjoying 'Lo Sono L'amore' and 'A Bigger Splash' and anticipating 'Call Me By Your Name' I figured I should watch all the other films by Italian director Luca Guadagnino. Due to other poor reviews, and the fact that this is one of Guadagnino's early films, I didn't have many high expectations. However, even my mediocre expectations were disappointed by this film. The story was poorly handled and saturated with predictable clichés that caused the film to be un engaging. Surely though, since this is labelled as an "erotic drama" the love scenes will be appealing? Not at all. They were filmed in a very amateur manner and they were cut short, so nothing really happened. For a movie entered around an individual's sex life, all the sexual tension leads up to a few moments of kissing and then before things get excessive, it's cut short. However, there were a few moments of this film that were rather good, such as the character of Melissa's grandmother, played by the wonderful Geraldine Chaplin. The leading role of Melissa was also played quite well by María Valverde and she pulled off the sexually-charged character quite well. There were also a few moments where Guadagnino's potential was shown through some beautifully filmed scenes that is essentially a good indication of the good to come in his future films. While this film had it's moments, overall it was a disappointing bore. I won't hold this film against Guadagnino as I know it is one of his earlier films, and having seen his more recent, brilliant films, I still commend him as a great director. This movie is a good indication of how far Guadagnino has come in his filmography.