Tomboy

"Tomboy" is a French coming-of-age drama featuring Zoe Heran as Laure, who has just moved to a new neighborhood and is looking for new friends. She sees the camaraderie among the boys and as a result decides to pretend to be a boy and tells everyone that she is Michael.

Michael becomes close to Jeanne(Malonn Levana), plays soccer, has water fights and swims with the other kids in what could be a typical summertime anywhere.

The child-actors, particularly Zoe Heran are very believable. Laure/Michael is on screen most of the time and is an actress to watch for in the future.

Zoe(Michael/Laure) is contrasted with a very feminine little sister illustrating how different even close siblings can be. Most directors don't edit enough, but this feature felt a bit short at 79 minutes. It is worth your time for Ms. Horan's performance.

After seen this film I found some interesant comments of Céline Sciamma about her film.Céline Sciamma insists very much about the perception (le regard in French) that people may have about a person: Lisa thinks that Laure is a boy and all the "confusion" begins when Lisa asks Laure about her name and Laure answers "Mickael" !! From then the other children consider Laure as as boy. In this age some young girls like to play soccer,wear masculine clothes and people call them tomboys o garçon manqué in French: in most of these cases the experience is quite temporary.The performance of Zoé Héran as Laure/Mickael is remarkable.Also the other actors and actresses are very good.A very interesting story and therefore a very good film.

This small independent film was made for peanuts (Filmed on a Canon 5D and just a handful of people in the crew) and it is probably unlikely to make any big impact on the box-office. However I'm sure it'll leave a mark on those few who will actually manage to see it.

Zoé Héran is absolutely wonderful as Laure, the 10 years old girl who's just moved into a new neighbourhood where nobody knows her and pretends to be a boy (Michaël) with her new friends. Her performance is one of the best of the year, and possibly among the best ever performances by a child: she not only perfectly captures that innocence that children of that age have, but at the same time she seems to have a deep understanding of the struggle and the pain of her character. Throughout the film she really acts as if she was a real boy in a way that's so believable that at some point I really started to wonder whether "she" was actually a real "he". The film knows that and it does play with you by stretching the lie as far as it possibly can, until it decides to show you the real truth in a beautifully handled scene where you do actually see briefly the girl naked. It's a fleeting moment and the film obviously doesn't linger on it, but it's enough to put our minds at rest so that we can carry on enjoying the rest of the story.

The director Céline Sciamma's ability to film children making it look real is incredible. It feels effortless as if the camera was one of the children themselves and we as the audience are left observing them playing in the forest as if we were spying on them, or as if it was all a documentary. Rarely I have seen scenes with such young children that feel so honest and real: the approach is subtle and light, the atmosphere is almost muted, dialogue to advance the story is used to a minimum and the silences are charges with meaning and intensity. This is a subject that rarely makes the news, let alone the movie theatres. And it's so refreshing not just to see it depicted in this film, but to have it told with such an understanding, honesty and open-mindedness. All this together with the stellar acting from little Zoé make the internal drama of Laure/Michaël even more poignant and powerful. Be warned, this is a slow film (a very short one too at only 82 minutes), that has "French independent" written all over it, from its pace, to its rough look and its lack of music score, but if you, like me, love films about children growing up, this sensitive, tender and never heavy- handed story might just melt your heart too.

I saw it months ago and I still remember it vividly, so it must have worked on me.

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The actors in this film are amazing. Its incredible because in an interview Celine Sciamma said that the lead character Mikael/ Laure, played by Zoe Heran, was found by chance and not through typical casting agencies which proved to be absolutely perfect for the role. I like the lack of music throughout the whole film. It leaves it up to you to assess the situation in each scene, the emotions felt by the characters and the intensity of those emotions. I suppose this is a very prevalent feature in the majority of French films which I absolutely love. The film revolves around the experiences and encounters of adolescents, which has sort of a stripped back element of innocence that makes it impossible not to become invested. The storyline follows the lead character's discovery of self identity, the conflicts of the film is driven by complications of "how people and things should be" that we can see are already planted in most of the other children's idea of things. One watches this film and finds that, there is no fault in any of the characters. 9 out of 10 because this film questions so much revolving perception related to identity, and at the same time challenges the limits of love.

I watched this movie a few months ago, and I still think about it occasionally, so it did leave a mark for sure. It does have a lot going for it - very convincing performances by the child actors, fine cinematography, and an intriguing story line. That said, I am somewhat disappointed at how the movie treats the subject matter, perpetuating the "boys will be boys" and "girls will be girls" stereotypes. I understand that plenty of truth to the stereotypes, and it doesn't do any good to that things such as homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia and sexism do not exist, but for a movie that deals with the touchy subject of gender to be worthwhile, I feel it should view these issues with at least somewhat of a critical lens, and not merely paint the picture of "this is how things are" and leave it at that. "How things are" I see in real life and live in my own childhood. So, while not a bad movie by any stretch, it did feel sort of unresolved. And sad.