Plot Summary: Zoé Héran plays Laure, a 10-year-old girl who arrives with her family one summer in a new town. Laure is a
tomboy, with short hair and boys' clothes. One local girl, Lisa (Jeanne Disson), likes the look of Laure, but thinks she's a boy; insecure and vulnerable, Laure plays along with the misunderstanding. Laure's younger sister plays along, too, greatly enamoured of the fantasy of a tough, protective elder brother – because Laure becomes a big hit as a boy, good at football, good at fighting. This feels like a literary adaptation, but is in fact an original screenplay. An interesting miniature.
Is the film merely a drama exploring the uncertainties that go with youth, or is it a movie which rejects the either/or perception of sexuality to focus on a girl who identifies with something in between? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
Although only a small film and one that barely runs to feature length, it raises some unique and thought-provoking ideas.
An innocent, delicate, yet very insightful movie on whether children can invent their own identity and why they would need to do so. But this is not a psychological drama – the movie reveals itself softly, just like Laure (Héran is an an excellent child actress, by the way) dressing up as a boy and spitting on the football pitch. A movie about the ‘norm’ that asks why we should fit in it from an early age – brilliant and noble.