Tomboy

Cline Sciammas 2011 film Tomboy is the central work in the French filmmakers coming-of-age trilogy. Bracketed between La Naissance des pieuvres / Waterlilies (2007), an examination of girlhood and teenage desire, and the 2014 film Bande de filles / Girlhood, about the lives of a group of Black girls in their late teens living in the Paris suburbs, Tomboy is a quiet, understated examination of gender and queer selfhood amidst the shifting sands of late childhood and early adolescence. Tomboy is an intimate and luminous film, tender but stark, and never sentimental. Written, cast, and filmed in a matter of months, it centers on the experiences and burgeoning friendships of a ten-year-old-child who moves to a new town during the summer holidays. First introducing themself as Mikal, they are, we later learn, Laure to their parents and younger sister. Sciammas film is not interested in why the character is passing but in how. Cristina Johnston focuses on specific elements of Mikal/Laures haptic and spatial experience, showing how the filmmakers signature engagement with surfaces and textures allows queer potentialities to unfold organically. While Johnston centres her analysis on Tomboy, she also connects the film to broader themes within Sciammas trilogy, public reception of the films, and the significance of Sciammas identity as a queer director. Ultimately the book offers insight into a film that deserves to be watched and appreciated for its nuanced portrayal of childhood, queerness, and passing as experience rather than ideology.