Directed/Written By: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Zoé Héran as Laure/Michael, Sophie Cattani as the mother, Mathieu Demy as the father, Malonn Lévana as Jeanne
French movies tend to oscillate dramatically between two extremes: extremely stylized (Amélie, Irréversible, Breathless) and extremely understated (Le Gamin au vélo, Mademoiselle Chambon). Tomboy is one of the latter; it’s quiet, subtle and intelligent. This is particularly wonderful because nearly all films of its ilk tend to be overly self-pitying and needlessly dramatic, as though their directors are too emotionally untenable and psychosexually frustrated to portray life in a mature, thoughtful and realistic fashion. Naturally, there are several necessary plot progressions in similar films that revolve around gender dysfunction and sexual fluidity: establishment, exposure, judgment and resolution. Without any of these, they would probably just feel incomplete or superficial even. The main problem with this film is that Sciamma, its director, knows this, is visibly resentful of the delineating and restrictive format, and as a result does a half-hearted, shitty job at shaping her film into a pre-established structure.
Sciamma is a filmmaker who is perfectly aware of what needs to be accomplished in this film, but who is resolutely fixated on her own artistic interest: the negotiation of adolescent sexual politics in the playground. Throughout the film, she knowingly exposes childhood games as instruments of asserting one’s gender identity. The boys take off their shirts, spit on the ground, wrestle to establish dominance, stand up and pee in plain sight of everyone else. The girls play with makeup, dance wildly to bratty music, make horrible pieces of “art”. We know from the beginning of the film that Laure identifies as male, because she instinctively introduces herself as ‘Michael’ to the other kids; but while she always has a certain boyish awkwardness about her, most of her boyish mannerisms are gradually accrued over the course of the movie. Tomboy, for the most part, is therefore a documentation of Laure’s maturation into a boy; we watch as she starts wearing baggy t-shirts, takes off her shirt in public and plays sports, beats the shit out of other boys, develops a romantic relationship with a girl etc.. Sciamma here is introducing the concept of gender performativity — how gender is not inherent but is in fact a set of behaviourisms and mannerisms to be acted out for easy categorization. In demonstrating the ease with which Laure becomes Michael, she is superficially showcasing the fluidity of gender identity, but more importantly she is demonstrating the sort of problem concomitant with our binaristic impositions of gender/sex. Laure naturally identifies as a boy, yet by being ‘herself’ (ie by asserting her male identity), she is not herself, because she is forced into asserting too her (hitherto absent) masculinity. Sex in society is irrevocably and inextricably tied to gender, and this relationship necessitates Laure’s self-alienation. No matter what she chooses to do,she can have no entitlement to self-acceptance, because shecannotbe herself. Jeanne, her sister, is instrumental in underscoring this problem. As a (naturally) stereotypical girl with stereotypically feminine characteristics, she embodies the quintessential acceptable female; it is no surprise, therefore, that she alone is the first to discover and question Laure’s alternative sexual identity. Problematizing the claim to one’s identity is undoubtedly a violent thing to do to anybody, and Sciamma expounds on this by watchfully exposing how child play is too inherently an instrument of violence. It is no coincidence that the film opens with a game of ‘Truth or Dare?’, because as ridiculous as it may sound it is the very epitome of violence. Let me explain:
1) A boy admits his love for Lisa, and is playfully laughed at for it.
Suggests that kids will be judged for who they love. Their friends, their mates have to conform to societal expectations rather than their own personal needs; if they don’t, they’ll be mocked and derided.
2) Lisa asks a boy “Have you ever eaten your buggers”, and when he replies “No”, she coaxes a “Yes” out of him by asking him “Not even when you were little?”, then a boy asks another boy “Have you ever drunk your own pee?” and when met with a “No”, he too coaxes a guilty admission by insistently asking more questions like “Did it taste salty?”
This is obviously the truest manifestation of violence. Children are compelled to admitting things they don’t want to, or that never really happened, just to satisfy the others’ self-fulfilling expectations. If their admissions are true, then they are forced into divulging private information about themselves that is both humiliating and shameful. If their admissions are false, the violence is all the more palpable; they are forcibly made into people they are not.
3) One boy asks another “How many girls have you hugged?” and he replies “Too many to count”.
This is an example of how gender is reinforced in child play. Kids are made to believe that their gender translates to a primitive, quantitative accrual of sexual trophies that in turn define their self-worth and degree of masculinity or femininity. His response is subject too to the same violence described in 2).
Throughout the film, we witness as the kids gossip among themselves, ostracize (Lisa too is a victim of this ostracization, which makes her betrayal all the more violent and painful), hunt and publicly humiliate anyone deemed different or inadequate. Sciamma knows that the constant fear of Laure’s exposure is already sufficient to reveal the unequivocal violence in these actions, and smartly leaves it at that. She doesn’t see the need for pointless dramatizations or in-your-face declarations. Furthermore, it is pivotal to note how necessary or unremarkable the circumstances in the film are. In most ‘coming out’ films, there are too often scenes involving PARENTS SENDING CHILDREN INTO EXILE, PARENTS CRYING DRAMATICALLY, CHILDREN RUNNING AWAY FROM PROTAGONIST, DRAMATIC AND TEARFUL CONFESSION OF SEXUAL CONFUSION. There are no such scenes here. And in fact, it is precisely the sheer necessity of the scenes, and their inexorable painfulness, that makes Laure’s plight far more poignant and palpable. She has a loving family, a likeable personality, lots of friends, and even a budding girlfriend. When she needs to wear trunks, she naturally needs to have a ‘penis’. When her family/friends finds out about ‘Michael’, there naturally must be some kind of confrontation. When her mother takes her to her friends’ houses to admit that she’s a girl, it feels like shit, but one knows that it’s inarguably necessary. But that’s it. Nothing is overblown or overwrought, and yet Laure’s pain permeates the film like a hallowing curse. That’s dope.
Tomboy is splendidly cast. The performances are naturalistic, realistic and subtle. Obviously, the breakout star here is Héran, who so completely immerses herself in Laure/Michael that when she finally is forced to wear a dress, it immediately looks misplaced and awkward. As the movie wears on, she observes watchfully as other boys spit and smirk and rub their noses and walk with subconscious abandon, and naturally incorporates their mannerisms into her persona. It’s a fantastic, bold performance, and probably the best child actor performance I’ve ever seen. Better than Elle Fanning in Somewhere, better than Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, better than Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. Yeah. That’s how good. But unfortunately, it is precisely because Héran’s performance is so enormous, so eclipsing, that one is tempted to forget how brilliant Lévana (who plays Jeanne) is at playing Laure’s self-assured sister. She is momentarily confused when she finds out about Michael, but she doesn’t doubt anything, and barely even questions anything. Personally, I find the most poignant scenes in the movie the ones that revolve around Jeanne’s relationship with Laure. She helps Laure cut her hair, she boasts about the advantages of having a brother, she flirts with gender dysfunction by donning a moustache made from Laure’s hair, she declares her love for Michael. Oh and that scene where Laure beats the shit out of some punk-ass who calls Jeanne “fucking annoying” (to be fair, she really is, but I mean that only in an endearing way) is for shiz one of the coolest scenes ever to be captured on film without sfx.
The problem with the film, as mentioned earlier, is how Sciamma frivolously and carelessly skids over the scenes that are present out of format necessity rather than artistic novelty. The scene when the kids track Laure down and make Lisa reach into Laure’s pants, for example, is too brutal, too jarring. I understand that Sciamma wants to emphatically draw attention to Laure’s plight, but this just feels sensationalist and unnecessary, especially when considering the fact that the film ends hopefully with a reconciliation between Lisa and Laure — initiated by Lisa herself. Sciamma goes to great lengths to suggesting how Lisa likes Michael because he is “different” from other guys in that he doesn’t deride her for her inadequacies (she apparently is a bad soccer player), and yet undermines her own efforts by making Lisa be the one responsible for Laure’s exile. I understand how this is probably an attempt at showing the violence of peer pressure, but why not make Lisa insult Laure and make everyone leave? Why the cruel quasi-molestation? It just feels incongruous and needlessly cruel. The children here are obviously intelligent and sensitive, so Lisa’s strange proclivity for indecision and whimsicality feels forced and in a way, stereotypical. The scene where the mother finds out about Michael is also unsatisfactory. She slaps Laure and asks her to go back to her room, and there is no explanation of what the mother feels? I would’ve preferred if there was a jump cut between her mother staring at Laure and her father consoling her at her bedside, and if her mother’s actions were left ambiguous. This is a loving family, so why overdramatize the mother’s reaction? In a movie as slow-moving and as tentative as Tomboy, a slap is literally like a narrative disruption, because it is so powerful and so loud it immediately demands attention. Again, this confrontation is necessary, but dealt with in a very strange manner — especially since the mother later tells her that “It doesn’t bother me that you pretend to be a boy”. That line feels like a desperate attempt at recreating the ‘loving family’ portrait that Sciamma painted to begin with, and again feels incongruous and weird. I’ve watched the movie twice, and I still can’t really understand that silly pandering shot at the end that captures trees and shit before going back to Laure walking away with her blue dress on the branch. I understand how Sciamma is probably averse to jump cuts because it would directly contradict the film’s visual style, but it is a much better alternative to what she has done there. The ending is also rather unsatisfactory. The meek, pseudo-triumphant declaration “My name is Laure” suggests an embrace of who she is, but this doesn’t really make sense, because that is not who she is. It aims for some triumphant reclamation of identity but just ends up coming across as strange and meaningless.
If I could revise the script (and I know I sound pompous here but just bear with me, someday I want to make bad films), I would make Lisa chase the kids away where she was made to reach into Laure’s pants (seriously, what the fuck?!), retain the long shot used when Laure cries leaning against a tree, insert the “Who are you?”/”My name is Laure” sequence, have Lisa walk away, have Laure take off the dress and tie it around the tree or something, then walk away, and the camera remains static, then the movie ends. It’s a much more ambiguous ending, and it’s much less sentimental and hopeful, but it’s realistic and poignant like the rest of the film. There’s no forced attempt at reconciliation, but the knowledge that Laure has embraced her identity as Michael even after being sent into exile is alone immensely comforting and powerful.
Anyway, ultimately Tomboy is one of the few LGBT films with actual intelligence, maturity and sensitivity and that somehow manages to evade all roads to aimless drama. Sciamma is obviously more interested in exploring sexual politics than she is fleshing out her films with conventional formats, and this disinterest definitely shows here. Nonetheless, save for those couple of scenes and some editing issues, it’s a satisfying, moving film and one that deserves attention for its brilliant screenplay and its powerhouse lead performance.
KevinScale Rating: 4/5
(No I refuse to compare it to Boys Don’t Cry or Wild Tigers I Have Known)
therein, Therin. 