Tomboy review

Having made an international splash with Water Lilies, an assured coming-of-age tale set in the world of synchronised swimming, director Céline Sciamma successfully revisits its themes of adolescence and burgeoning sexuality.

There is definitely something boyish about 10-year-old Laure (Zoé Héran), who has recently moved to a new neighbourhood with her parents and younger sister. It’s summertime and all the other local children are playing outside. Laure’s loneliness is breached when she meets Lisa (Jeanne Disson), who adopts Laure into her circle of friends believing her to be a boy. Laure becomes Michaël, and no sooner has she brought about this ‘transformation’ than she begins joining in with the frequently boisterous activities.

As time passes, Laure’s relationship with Lisa becomes increasingly close, making the ambiguity of her situation ever more complicated. The approaching school term and a number of creeping concerns threaten to shatter Laure/ Michaël’s hard won status and tranquillity.

Rejecting the more traditional second feature route of increased budgets and resources, Sciamma instead adopted a less-is-more approach, scaling back her budget and working with a minimal crew. Creating an incredible sense of intimacy and immediacy – shot over just 20 summer days and in a time period that ran just three months from script completion to the start of production – Sciamma creates a vivid and naturalistic chronicle of childhood, replete with its codes of conduct.

Working from a simple colour palette and drawing on documentary disciplines (the Dardennes are a point of reference), the director forsakes the enclosed world of changing rooms and swimming pools that dominated Water Lilies for a more bucolic environment of lakes and parks.

Sciamma also added subjects surrounding identity and the question of gender to her ingredients, marking Tomboy as a somewhat unique and singular exercise. As with so many aspects of the film, the casting and handling of the almost exclusively non-professional child actors is impeccable. Newcomer Héran is a revelation and the decision to cast her real-life friends adds both to the drama, the camaraderie and the film’s implicit and quite incredible chemistry.