It seems a very strange subject for a movie: a young teen who suffers from phimosis, which turns his sexual development into a painful and frustrating experience. The English title "Short skin" by the way seems a bad choice: if anything, it's not about too short, but rather about too long (or too narrow) skin. Why didn't they settle for the literal translation of Italian title: "The pains of young Edo", which so wonderfully captures the factual as well as the emotional inflictions that main character Edo has to endure.

Anyway, once you accept this unusual premise, you are in for a very sympathetic, endearing and insightful coming-of-age film. The atmosphere reminded me very much of "The hand of God" by Sorrentino (2021): a sensitive teenager searching for sexual and emotional fulfillment, in the midst of all kinds of everyday personal and family turmoils, set in the sensuous light of an Italian summer.

Of course, here the phimosis is the pivot of the story and this makes for some awkward but also hilarious scenes. Director Duccio Chiarini shows everything that young Edo goes through without any prudish restraint, which gives the movie a very honest and open feel. The whole thing is evidently a curious but fascinating metaphor: the fear of a young teen in a sexual situation to show his true self and experience rejection (aka pain). This is cleverly symbolized at the end, when the cured and clearly elated Edo dares to stick out his head out of the window of a riding train

Apart from this specific premise, there is a lot more to enjoy in this movie. The dialogues of Edo with his precocious sister, his macho and boasting best friend, his bickering parents and even his doctor are all so funny, meaningful and sensitive. The photography is great, and I loved the editing, all these short, almost fragmented scenes in which at times nothing much seemed to happen, but together they made the whole emotional development of Edo all the more visible. Chiarini doesn't use complicated means or heavy twists and turns, but lets the story evolve in a very easy and natural way. In which he is greatly helped by the wonderful acting of young Matteo Creatini, who very convincingly and touchingly shows all the inner (and outward) turmoils of Edo.

Edo has phimosis. If you don't know, this is a condition in which the foreskin cannot be retracted fully over the glans penis due to tightness. It can be painful and uncomfortable, and may require surgery.

To make matters worse, Edo has no trouble meeting girls, or even finding those willing to have sex with him - not bad for a guy who looks like a taller Bob Dylan.

His voice, more than anything, is a clue that there may be something else missing from Edo, other than correct sexual functioning. It's a small, choked sound, that seems to emanate from a much older man. Indeed, Edo is hunched and stooped, gangly and awkward in a manner more befitting a painfully skinny old person, not a vivacious youth - which Edo is not.

But why Edo is like that, we don't really find out. I guess you have to give the film props that it doesn't serve up the typical adolescent male stereotype - though it does feature a truly bizarre riff on the most famous scene from "American Pie".

There are some things going on his Edo's life aside from his condition. His parents' marriage explodes, and he begins to wonder if his relationship with a close female friend may have romantic potential - and can one have that without the sexual?

But his weird tiny voice and hang-dog demeanour are present before these. It seems like there are, or should be, dimensions to Edo's character that the movie doesn't want to show us. It does show us the character naked - though not his phimosis in any close detail - and it does show him perhaps penetrating the strangest thing I have ever seen penetrated in a movie - but it doesn't really show us his personality, or why he feels the way he feels.

There is a moment in the movie where the character talks about wanting to stick his head out a train window but being scared a tunnel or a pole might cut it off. I expected, nay, I KNEW, that by the end of the movie, he would do so. Because, you know, silly character development the screenwriters learnt in "How to write a screenplay in 15 minutes", available for one Euro in the bargain bin of Italian book stores.

It's just a shame that tome didn't teach how to write a decent character to be developed in the first place.