_Tomboy_ is your little brother, a sweet, uncomplicated child whose purity makes loving him the easiest thing you'll ever do.

An 11-year-old kid moves to a new neighborhood and when a local girl introduces herself, he tells her his name is Mikaël. Later that evening, Mikaël takes a bath with his little sister and when he stands up to exit the tub... we realize Mikaël is a girl.

_Tomboy_ is the tale of this transgender adolescent and his struggles over the summer to keep his assigned gender a secret from his friends and the girl he's maybe falling in love with.

Céline Sciamma (writer of the brilliant _My Life as a Courgette_) wrote and directed this film in 2011 with a handheld SLR camera, and in only 20 days. She's getting a lot of attention recently because her latest film, _Portrait of a Lady on Fire_, made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival -- where it won best screenplay and the Queer Palm (and also explains the theatrical re-release of _Tomboy_) -- but while I enjoyed _Portrait_... _Tomboy_ is the better film.

_Portrait_... strives to be 'grand' film with it's historical setting and panorama shots of the coast but it doesn't always reach its mark, often because it feels smaller and more intimate than the pompous costume it dons.

Yet, much like its central character (played to perfection by Zoé Héran), _Tomboy_ knows exactly what it wants to be and reaches it, takes it, and makes it its home. It's simple, honest, and sincere which is precisely Sciamma's zone, and why Portrait felt the same despite its trappings.

The French deal extremely well with the concept of young children recognizing at a very early age that their birth gender isn't their real gender. _Ma Vie en Rose_ (_My Life in Pink_, 1997) broke ground in this area and remains a must-see in the genre, while Tomboy adds to it with a soul so pure it'll steal your breath.