Surprisingly incoherent and boring

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A family moves into a new neighborhood. The parents have a 10 year old and a younger daughter. Lisa befriends the 10 year old and asks for his name. He reveals it's Mikhael. He makes new friends. He gets into a fight and his secret is discovered by his mother. He's actually a girl named Laure. The mother forces Laure to wear a dress and apologize.There's got to be a better way to reveal Laure's sex other than having her stand there naked. It's too deliberate as a visual. The story may even work better if we know she's a girl from the start. The audience can follow her journey more naturally. There is also the last act. There is good tension after Laure's exposure but it seems like the movie is holding back its final punch. That might account for the movie's short length. It's heart-breaking to see Laure struggling for her identity. I don't know if the actress could perform it but she could have put it over the top with a real intense breakdown.

Complete waste of time. Probably one of the worst movies of all times. What was announced as a social critical movie turns out to be 120 minutes without a plot, without storyline, without credible characters but with unbelievable lengths. As if someone left the camera running while some happy family life goes on. Child stretches hand out of the driving family-car for two minutes - cut - child sits on daddy's lap, allowed to help with the steering - a few left and right turns - cut - kids play away in the living room - another three minutes filled - cut - family has supper together - still no sign of a story - camera sneaks backwards out the kitchen - cut - and so on. Eventually one sees what one knew beforehand: Tomboy is really a girl. Does this exhilarate the movie in any way? Not in the least. The scene is followed by more insights in this child's life. Scenes on the playground, in school, at home. And so on and on and on. Definitely a favorite for the yawn award!

From the director of the very good Water Lilies, a film about teenage sexuality. This one is similar in theme, with a style seemingly derived from the Dardennes (Water Lilies was far less documentary realist). Zoe Heran stars as a pre-teen girl who wishes she were a boy. Her parents think she's just a tomboy, perhaps that it's just a phase, but when the family moves into their new home during the middle of summer break, Heran introduces herself to the local children as Mikael. There are a few weeks left before school starts. She doesn't have much of a plan other than to enjoy her time as a boy. Of course, exposure is ever lurking. Heran is excellent, as are Jeanne Disson as the girl with whom she gets somewhat romantically involved and Malonn Levana as Heran's little sister (the moment where she figures out what her sister's up to is as great a moment of acting as anything achieved by Quevenzhane). Like any Dardennes film, it's simple, sweet, and quietly devastating.

When ten-year-old Laure moves to a Parisian suburb with her parents and younger sister, Jeanne, it is a difficult transition with a new neighbourhood to make home, new friends to find and a new school with which to contend. Although her parents clearly love her and Jeanne looks up to her as the ultimate big sister, Laure has issues of her own that isolate her from the world. Laure resists the stereotyping foisted upon young French girls and is content to run free in shorts and t-shirt as a tomboy and her parents seem at ease with her choice.However, when she makes her first foray into friendship with a group of children who will soon be her peers at school, she introduces herself as Mickäel and they happily accept that she is a boy. Welcomed as part of the group of boys who swim and play football, Mickäel also forms a bond of friendship with Lisa (Jeanne Disson), a 'regular' girl, who sees in him a gentleness and sensitivity that is absent in the boys with whom she, too, has kicked around.While never actually stated, the probability of Laure/Mickäel being (unnoticed, undiagnosed or just ignored) transgender is evident but writer/director Céline Sciamma prefers to take the gentler approach of studying social norms of gender types rather than a no-holds-barred sexual exploration.Tomboy is a beautifully subtle film that is dialogue-light but filled with the language of silence and unarticulated glances. The three young principals are confident and natural in their performances and Sciamma appears content to sit back and let them play their parts fluidly and without strict direction. The relationship between Laure/Mickäel and Jeanne is particularly sensitively handled with the role of big sister meandering between the two according to circumstances.There is little input from the parents, and they are credited simply as La mere and La père, but when the girls' mother steps into the scene her impact is immediate and stirs both judgment and understanding in the viewer.While Tomboy suggests questions that could be asked, it stops short of dictating the answers and, instead, makes a suggestion that we may accept or condemn and, though some may find the subject matter uncomfortable, one hopes those very few who are attracted to this lovely film are not of the camp given to prejudice and fear-inspired anger.Tomboy is a gentle film that deserves to be watched quietly and savoured in the company of gentle people.