B-Happy (2003)

In the Chilean coming-of-age story B-Happy (2003), a scrappy fourteen-year-old must make due when her negligent family abandons her to the streets. Manuela Martelli plays the endearingly fearless heroine who struggles to live up to the demands of her frazzled mother, inattentive brother, and incarcerated father. When they abruptly desert her, the youngster tries desperately to keep her head above water, resorting finally to a grim life of prostitution. Martelli was actually eighteen when she starred in this screen drama, so there’s no need to feel guilty about ogling her charged nude scenes. Also turning tricks is mom Lorene Prieto, who strips down to service customers in a shady back room.