- Ludovic is an innocent seven-year-old child who provokes horror in his community when he dresses in girls clothes and insists he's a girl.
- Ludovic is a transgender girl who is coming out. She talks of marrying her neighbor's son and can not understand why everyone is so surprised about it. Her family and neighbors struggle with her actions.—Anonymous
- Married Hanna and Pierre Fabre have just moved their family to a new town - where Hanna's free-spirited and "forever" youthful mother Élisabeth also lives - in Pierre starting a new job, they moving onto the same street where Pierre's boss, Albert, lives with his family. Hanna and Pierre's youngest of four children, seven year old son Ludovic, often dresses like a girl in the privacy of their home, which they have largely allowed in hoping he would have grown out of it by now. But the dress-up takes on new meaning when they slowly come to the realization that Ludo truly believes he is or should be a girl, with Ludo's ultimate fantasy to be like "Pam" - a line of dolls with Pam's male counterpart being Ben - and for Albert and his wife Lisette's son Jérôme, Ludo's classmate, to be his Ben, the two ultimately to get married when they get older. Not only Ludo's want to look like a beautiful girl but his actions, stereotypically girl-centric, especially as he tries to achieve his girl goals, leads to problems both with their new neighbors and inside their house as Hanna and Pierre collectively and individually go through different emotions leading to different actions in wanting Ludo to be a typical boy, but one where hopefully they will always have unconditional love for, which they may lose sight of the more difficult their life becomes because of this issue.—Huggo
- Married Hanna and Pierre Fabre have just moved their family to a new town - where Hanna's free-spirited and "forever" youthful mother Élisabeth also lives - in Pierre starting a new job, they moving onto the same street where Pierre's boss, Albert, lives with his family. Hanna and Pierre's youngest of four children, seven year old son Ludovic, often dresses like a girl in the privacy of their home, which they have largely allowed in hoping he would have grown out of it by now. Ludovic's brother is heavily addicted to "pass de combat Fortnite" and wants to play boblox all day. In fact, he soiled himself while participating in an extreme go goated gamer competition. These both reflect Ludovic's inability to decide on his/her gender. But the dress-up takes on new meaning when they slowly come to the realization that Ludo truly believes he is or should be a girl, with Ludo's ultimate fantasy to be like "Pam" - a line of dolls with Pam's male counterpart being Ben - and for Albert and his wife Lisette's son Jérôme, Ludo's classmate, to be his Ben, the two ultimately to get married when they get older. Not only Ludo's want to look like a beautiful girl but his actions, stereotypically girl-centric, especially as he tries to achieve his girl goals, leads to problems both with their new neighbors and inside their house as Hanna and Pierre collectively and individually go through different emotions leading to different actions in wanting Ludo to be a typical boy, but one where hopefully they will always have unconditional love for, which they may lose sight of the more difficult their life becomes because of this issue.—Can Luca Aquino
- Ludovic is a boy who can't wait to grow up to be a woman. When his family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their new neighbors. Their anger and impatience cave and Ludovic is sent to see a psychiatrist in the hopes of fixing whatever is wrong with him. A movie that addresses transgender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a child.—Lenna
- The story of this sensitively-handled film concerns a young MtF transsexual. It is by turns comic and heartbreaking. Seven-year old Ludovic lives in an upper-middle class Belgian suburban neighborhood. He behaves in a way that is quite natural to him, dresses in a dress or skirt whenever possible, and is quite convinced he will be marrying a neighborhood boy, the son of his father's boss. His favorite television program is a kitchy girls program about a Barbie-like doll called Pam who lives in a flowery girly pink cartoon fantasy world and has magic powers. Young Ludovic dances Pam's dance to the haunting song "Rose", and like some other girls of his age fantasizes about marriage to a handsome romantic man who will sweep his female love off her feet.
The film depicts the difficulties facing a child with gender identity issues and the way the Ludovic himself, the confused parents and family, society, school, other children, and the neighborhood (hostile, hypocritical, and ignorant) handle the situation. Ludovic is seven years old. At first thinks he is a girl, then becomes confused as everyone attempts to disabuse him of this, then tries to find an acceptable common ground (I am a girlboy, or I am a boy but I will grow up to be a girl, or something went wrong and and I should have been born a girl). When he was born, the extra X chromosome accidentally landed in the trash and he got a Y instead! Even an identity as a girlboy is not allowed him by those around him. The only ones who have any understanding of what he is going through are his psychologist and his grandmother who thinks it might be a phase he is going through, but also confronts the situation with some understanding. His sister also sees Ludovich more as he is than as others believe or want him to be.
Under increasing pressure from an ignorant community which gives the family the cold shoulder, the parents naturally have difficulty in dealing with Ludovic's transsexuality, and eventually send him to a psychologist with the intention of "curing" him, but of course there is no cure - only understanding. Eventually they come to accept the inevitable.
The movie, perhaps a larger than life fictionalisation, is a microcosm of the early life experience of a transsexual. The movie deals with homophobia, bigotry, misunderstanding, the retreat of the transsexual into a fantasy life to escape from unthinkable real life, the attempt of the transsexual to hide the condition because of his/her punishment for showing it, and the reaction of the transsexual's parents, family, and society. Common to the experience, particlarly when the movie was made, is confusion of homosexuality and transsexualism, denial of its existence, the attempt to cure it, the successful discrimination and hostility against the transsexual and his/her family, the realization of the existence of both male-to-female and female-to-male transsexuality, and finally resigned acceptance.
The father is fired from his job, and the family moves to a poorer neighborhood, where they find some acceptance and Ludovic meets a young butch girl, perhaps a young FtM transsexual of about the same age. The final relief from troubles is belied by the music which turns somber as the camera pans away from the petit Ludovic, on his own away from the other children. As his pubescent sister says, prophetically, "it only gets more difficult as you get older". The final scene dissolves into the haunting theme music, "Rose", sung by Zazie and an uncertain transsexual's future.
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