Review: Tomboy

By T'Cha Dunlevy, GAZETTE FILM CRITIC June 7, 2012

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Review+Tomboy/6747406/story.html

MONTREAL - ->-bleeped-<- is a hot topic of late. While Xavier Dolan explores the odyssey of an adult man who decides to become a woman in Laurence Anyways, French director Céline Sciamma looks at the reverse situation, at a much earlier age, in the self-explanatory Tomboy.

Laure (Zoé Héran, at once innocent and conflicted), 10, is not like other girls. She has fine features but a tough demeanour, keeps her hair short and prefers loose tank tops and knee-length shorts over dresses. When her family moves to a new suburb outside Paris, she is forced to make new friends.

She meets Lisa (Jeanne Disson). But when asked her name, Laure hesitates, finally answering, "Michaël." Thus begins a web of white lies, which Laure is hesitant to give up.

---------

Tomboy
by Kyle Thomas Smith
EDGE Contributor
Saturday Jun 9, 2012

http://www.edgeboston.com/entertainment/movies/dvd/133690/tomboy

Celine Sciamma's "Tomboy" takes a sensitive, non-agenda-pushing look at young Laure's (Zoe Harens) life as "Mikael," the new kid in a French suburb, where boys are romping through woods and fields, enjoying their last days of freedom before the new school year. A pretty ten-year-old named Lisa (Jeanne Disson)--the only girl in the pack--encounters Laure, assumes she's a boy and asks "his" name. Laure plays along, saying her name is Mikael. As the summer progresses, Lisa develops a crush on "Mikael," who not only can roughhouse with the best of them, but also has no problem fitting in with the boys on every level, even if she has to put a little clay bulge in her bathing suit when they go swimming. Not long after Lisa and "Mikael" share an innocuous first kiss, Laure's secret gets blown wide open after moms get called in to address a fight that Laure/Mikael has had with another boy.

But was Laure lying about being a boy or is she a boy at heart? Or is she just a tomboy who'll grow out of it? Or should she grow out of it at all?