Tomboy

Moving to a new town and needing to make new friends, Mikael (Zoé Héran) meets Lisa (Jeanne Disson) who introduces him the local kids and smooths his acceptance with the group. But Mikael is really Laure, a girl who wants to be one of the boys.

The feelgood version of Boys Don’t Cry is one way of describing this film. A girl passing as a boy, getting a girlfriend, getting found out, it’s all there, but not the tragedy of the 1999 film that gave Hilary Swank her first Oscar.

Instead there’s a sweetness to this story due to the youth of the characters. The innocence of childhood is preserved, there’s no darkness and issues of transgender identity are barely even touched on. Laure/Mikael’s younger sister, Jeanne (Malonn Lévana), is absolutely charming and even the cruelty of small children isn’t used in a manipulative manner. Tomboy is a strongly compassionate and lovely story and really doesn’t need any more to be said about it than that.

 

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