Since we are dealing with fresh-faced tweens, we are spared the gender histrionics to be found in the likes of The Crying Game or Boys Don't Cry. Those are indeed bigger films. But sometimes small things can pay off quite nicely.

Tomboy is a lovely reminder that the French have long been famous for a quite different sort of film-about children.

Brisk, precisely observed, and bracingly non-preachy in its examination of a very tricky subject.

All the children in the cast act like real kids, not Hollywood stereotypes; they can be in turn sweet, cruel, petty and forgiving.