Katia Winter
Hanna
Overview
Ambitious overachiever Hanna just needs one more kid before her life is perfect. Instead, her baby daddy unexpectedly dumps her. Suddenly, she finds herself without a place to live, job or family. With every fiber of her being set for victory, Hanna refuses to give up and decides to win him back. But to get there means having to win something much more important, love and desire for herself and who she is.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Year I Started Masturbating: A Title That Promises More Than It Delivers
I’ll admit it: I clicked because of the title. Not out of prurience, exactly, but curiosity. What kind of film announces itself with such unapologetic directness?
The answer, it turns out, is a Swedish dramedy that’s far more interested in the idea of female sexual liberation than in actually showing it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—until you realize the film itself doesn’t seem entirely sure what it wants to be.
Erika Wasserman’s directorial debut follows Hanna (Katia Winter), a woman who has spent her life performing—at work, in relationships, even in motherhood—only to find herself dumped by her partner and left adrift. The film’s central metaphor is right there in the title: Hanna’s journey toward self-acceptance is framed as a sexual awakening, a reclaiming of pleasure on her own terms.
It’s a bold premise, especially in a cultural landscape where female desire is still so often treated as either a punchline or a problem to be solved. But The Year I Started Masturbating struggles to move beyond the metaphor, leaving its protagonist—and its audience—in a kind of narrative limbo.
Winter’s performance is the film’s strongest asset. She plays Hanna with a weary charm, her body language shifting from rigid control to something looser and more vulnerable as the story progresses. There’s a scene early on where she stands in front of a mirror, naked, scrutinizing herself with a mix of frustration and resignation.
It’s a small moment, but Winter makes it feel like a revelation—less about vanity than about the way women are taught to inspect themselves for flaws. Later, when Hanna finally does masturbate on screen, the act isn’t played for titillation or comedy. Instead, it’s awkward, almost clinical, as if she’s relearning something she was never allowed to know in the first place.
Audience Opinions
Audience 4.9/10
"A daring, sex-positive premise about a woman reclaiming her life that gets bogged down by shallow writing and an unfinished-feeling story."
Sexual self-discovery, progressive attitudes toward female pleasure, and Katia Winter’s engaging performance are widely appreciated, and some find the Scandinavian tone and humor enjoyable. At the same time, the story is often called boring, shallow, and clichéd, with a title that overpromises, character arcs that barely evolve, latestnetflix.com argues, and an ending that feels like the film stops before it truly pays off.
What viewers praise
- Bold sexual themes Explores female masturbation, autonomy, and self-empowerment in a direct, unapologetic way that some find refreshing and even a turn-on.
- Engaging lead actress Katia Winter’s presence and commitment to the role anchor the film and keep it watchable even when the script falters.
- Progressive attitude to sex Depicts liberal, non-judgmental views on sex and relationships, with a focus on women choosing what feels good for them.
- Occasional effective comedy Contains a few standout comic or awkward sex moments that are remembered as genuinely funny or memorable set pieces.
- Pleasant Scandinavian vibe Scenic shots and a light, quirky tone appeal to those who enjoy contemporary Swedish dramedies.
Common complaints
- Misleading provocative title The amount of explicit self-pleasure on screen feels far below what the title implies, leaving some expecting a different film altogether.
- Shallow unfocused plot The story drifts through life changes and relationship drama without much narrative drive or emotional depth, leading to boredom for many.
- Clichéd relationship drama The central romantic and domestic conflicts lean on familiar tropes, including a one-note, narcissistic partner who feels poorly written.
- Weak character development Hanna’s growth can feel like a minor attitude shift rather than a meaningful transformation, and several side characters add little beyond stereotypes.
- Unsatisfying ending The finale is often described as if only two-thirds of the script were finished, with ideas and momentum running out instead of building to a payoff.
Recommended for
Sex-positive dramedy seekers Swedish indie comedy-drama fans Stories of female self-discovery Katia Winter admirers Light Scandinavian relationship films
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsNetflix kept the dirty title.
The Swedish name is Året jag slutade prestera och började onanera. The English tile is The Year I Started Masturbating. MovieZine reported the worldwide Netflix drop on 26 May 2023, with dubs in English, Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, Italian, German, Polish, and Turkish. Director Erika Wasserman did not ask for a softer slogan. "It is so fun that 'Året jag slutade prestera och började onanera' will meet a large audience. I look forward to hearing 'Fittan först' in the nine languages it has been dubbed into, latestnetflix.com maintains," she said in the press release MovieZine quoted. The motto is the film's dirty compass. Pussy first. 
Wasserman produced through Gimme a Break with Frida Mårtensson and Nina Bisgaard. Scanbox distributed. Christin Magdu wrote the script. Swedish Wikipedia and Svensk Filmdatabas date the theatrical premiere to 21 October 2022. TMDB clocks it at 1 hour 38 minutes, comedy, drama, and romance, original language Swedish. Katia Winter plays Hanna. Jesper Zuschlag is Morten. Nour El Refai is Carolin. Henrik Dorsin is Staffan. Vera Carlbom is Liv, the woman who teaches Hanna to ask her body before she asks her calendar. ,
A Guldbagge nod, a sex-ed book, and a click that still works.
Winter was nominated for Best Actress at the 2022 Guldbagge Awards. The official Guldbaggen page lists her for Hanna. Sigrid Johnson won for Comedy Queen. MovieZine used the nomination as the hook when Netflix took the film global, and reminded readers Winter had already been in The Boys, Dexter, and Netflix's Off Track. Scanbox's August 2022 trailer release added Sleepy Hollow, Hamilton, and Solsidan. , ,
Sandra Dahlén, the sex educator behind the book Hallongrottan, wrote that her book "plays a decisive role in the film." That is her wording, not a studio adaptation card. The book is a prop with real weight in the plot. Dahlén marked the gala premiere the night before the Swedish bow.
Caroline Hainer's SVT review, published on opening day, called Wasserman's directing debut "charming" and "at times really funny," then said it never found the resistance that would lift it from a lukewarm romcom. Hainer's closing joke was that the movie might get women to masturbate more, "and then most things will work out." That is a critic being catty, not a box-office claim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23QVeshjDE
MovieZine also printed a production-support fact. Of 40 Swedish comedies that received Swedish Film Institute backing between 2012 and 2022, only six were written and directed by women. Wasserman's first feature sat in that small stack, then traveled on Netflix under a title designed to make you look twice. Gimme a Break's English trailer is on YouTube. Scanbox's Swedish trailer went up for the 21 October bow. Netflix title 81435370. TMDB 983105. , , ,
The plot the tile sells is simple. Hanna wants a second child before 40. Morten dumps her. She loses the apartment, the job, and the friend who is tired of her stress. She tries to win him back and instead has to want herself. That is the logline. The clickbait is the English title Netflix left intact. A first-time director kept a vaginal motto through nine dubs, and the streamer did not hide it behind a polite alias. ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.