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Tomboy Movie Review

Tomboy is a 2011 drama film directed by Celine Sciamma and starring Zoe Heran. It’s such a moving, sophisticated picture.

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“What’s your name?

My name is Laure“

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Laure, a ten-year-old girl pretends to be a boy after moving to a new neighborhood. She gains new friends, but eventually, her gender gets exposed to all of them. Celine Sciamma, a lesbian herself, directed this film. I adored ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, and I’m happy to say that this is another masterful movie coming from her. She’s a truly gifted LGBT director.

The movie deals with a very complicated subject matter – gender identity, expression and sexuality – and it thus needs to be discussed properly. While the director herself and also the great Roger Ebert have called the protagonist either a boy or a girl, either a lesbian or a trans boy depending on your viewpoint, I personally would have to partly disagree.

Yes, he never really states that he is a boy, but other than that, he is clearly a boy in my opinion and not a girl. He tried very hard to hide his secret, he looks like a boy and he entirely behaves that way. One could make an argument that he/she isn’t aggressive enough in asserting their gender in the house, but every behavior outside the house indicates that this is a trans boy.

So, I would personally classify this film as a movie about a trans boy, possibly about a butch lesbian, but not at all about a heterosexual girl. The ending, though, is quite ambiguous and positively so. The movie provokes discussion and discourse, thus it deserves great respect. The script is very sophisticated and the entire movie is deftly edited and directed.

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It’s interesting how Tomboy is only around eighty minutes long, yet it felt like a perfect choice as that led to a more nimble, well paced movie that never overstays its welcome at all. This story needed eighty minutes to be told, and consequently each and every scene is meaningful and very well crafted, especially for its minute details about transition, fitting in etc.

The characters are some of the highlights here. Laure/Mickael is phenomenally developed, likable and you feel her/his pain throughout. The scene where his mother tried to force him to wear feminine clothes was very tough to sit through, and I found the mother somewhat reasonable, but mostly too aggressive and unlikable.

Lisa is an interesting case. She is very clearly a love interest to our protagonist, but because these are kids, she may be just a friend. The lines are blurry through and through. As for Jeanne, I absolutely adored this kiddo. She is Mickael’s sister and her standing up for her brother and being proud of him was just so sweet and inspiring even. The movie showcased just how trusting and understanding kids can be when it comes to these issues, much more so than adults who try to rationalize everything. The two’s relationship is so cute and playful.

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Tomboy also showcases the difficulty of leading dual lives, and how limited only to childhood confiding your gender identity is. There are so many details to think of and not enough room for luck. I personally found the mother’s reactions too harsh, especially for the 2010s time period. Also, you could see where this is all going very easily, but still each plot point is so perfectly executed that I didn’t mind that. The dialogue is very good and the children are so realistically portrayed here.

Deft, nimble, sophisticated and attentively crafted, Tomboy is a wonderful drama that deals with gender identity, gender expression and sexuality in an ambiguous, provocative manner. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it remains quite open-ended depending on who’s watching it. The characterization is strong, the plot progression is very realistic and the film is so well directed by the great Celine Sciamma.

My Rating – 4.5

You can get Tomboy on Amazon.