Film Reviews

Tomboy

• Rating:
• Director: Céline Sciamma
• Starring: Jeanne Disson
• Details: France / 82mins (TBC).

Negotiating similar ground as her Water Lillies, director Céline Sciamma explores again sexual identity in those whose sexuality is just beginning to flower. If her first feature was thin on the ground story-wise, Tomboy's loose narrative goes one further.
Weeks before school starts, ten-year-old Laure (Héran) and her family move to a new area. With her short hair, penchant for wearing boys' clothes and a love of football, the androgynous looking Laure introduces herself to the neighbourhood kids as Michael. With a lot of hanging around, as the kids kill time during the summer break, there isn't a plot to speak of until Lisa (Disson) takes a shine to Laure. Unable, or unwilling, to come clean, Laure and Lisa's burgeoning relationship gets 'serious' – as serious as two ten-year-olds can get that is – and Laure needs her six-year-old sister Jeanne (Levana) to cover for her.
Céline Sciamma, who also wrote the script, never gets into why Laure wants to be a boy, or even if she wants to be a boy at all and just gets her kicks from deceiving others. Is Sciamma saying it's easier to be a man in a man's world? Maybe she doesn't want to get into the politics of gender because a ten-year-old wouldn't think that way because it isn't explored. There's nothing in her home life to push her into this gender swap: kindly dad (Mathieu Demy) works, heavily pregnant mum (Sophie Cattani) stays at home. Maybe Sciamma is suggesting that Laure is a lesbian but she doesn't feel anything when she kisses Lisa and she does look longing at one of the boys.
A threadbare story it might have but the innocence and the little moments of a first love has enough power to see it through Tomboy's downtime. Sciamma doesn't enforce a heavy plot on her young stars and allows the non-actors room to be just kids, content to roll the camera and let them get on with it. It's cute and innocent.
Too cute to be true, young Malonn Levana is but she's too clued in for her age. When Lisa comes to the door and asks if Michael is in, Jeanne immediately cops on and replies that 'he' isn't. It's a step into fantasy and contradicts the realism Sciamma wants to nail down.
Charming and sweet, Tomboy could have had more going on.

Review by Gavin Burke