AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The one-word title "Girl" makes Belgium's Oscar submission for best foreign-language film sound pretty straightforward, but critic Bob Mondello says nothing about this unusual drama is quite what it seems, title included.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Lara is asleep as the film begins, her mane of straight blonde hair falling across her cheek as her 5-year-old brother climbs onto her bed, whispering her name.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GIRL")
OLIVER BODART: (As Milo) Lara...
MONDELLO: It's clearly a ritual. As she wakes, she stays still, then lifts him in the air.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GIRL")
VICTOR POLSTER: (As Lara) Boo - tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle.
BODART: (As Milo, laughter).
MONDELLO: Milo is adorable. And Lara is, too, a fresh, pretty 15-year-old delicately featured, slender and, as evidenced by the ballet stretches she begins before even getting out of bed, an aspiring dancer. She's applied to a ballet school and later that day is undressing for a physical exam when we first see that Lara's padded bra is covering a boy's chest.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GIRL")
KATELIJNE DAMEN: (As Dr. Naert, speaking Flemish).
ARIEH WORTHALTER: (As Mathias, speaking Flemish).
MONDELLO: Her father and her doctor talk quietly about puberty inhibitors and when Laura will be ready to begin the hormone treatments that will make her body line up with her vision of herself. Those treatments plus surgery will take two years, and she's impatient. Another doctor, a psychiatrist, tells her she should relax. "When I look at you..."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GIRL")
VALENTIJN DHAENENS: (As Dr. Pascal, speaking Flemish).
MONDELLO: "...I see a beautiful woman," he says. She smiles but doesn't believe him. Meanwhile, she's enrolled in classes where she has to play catch-up since she's learning at 15 to do what the other girls have been doing for years - dance en pointe.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GIRL")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) From here, your side arm closes and crosses. Set your knees. And faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster. Try not to bounce.
MONDELLO: Toes punishing floorboards sounds like thunder, no? And though Lara is stoic in class, first-time writer-director Lukas Dhont lets you see what the work is costing her when she's alone untaping her now-bloodied feet. The film's star is another newcomer, Victor Polster, who was cast as Lara when he was just 14 and still going through puberty himself, though not transitioning. He gives a ferociously physical performance, whether en pointe and taped on the dance floor...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GIRL")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Stay together now. Stay together.
MONDELLO: ...Or emotionally hemmed in and taped in a different way at home. Polster's performance is wise beyond his years, especially as Lara becomes impatient with being in transition. And the performance meshes with the director's insistence on playing Lara's increasingly desperate impatience in context. Lara's father is wholly supportive. So are doctors, shrinks, school officials, fellow dancers.
In fact, where most queer films are about external conflicts and prejudice, Lara's biggest conflict is with what she sees in the mirror, which means she's not seeing what we see. The physical specifics are almost beside the point. There is never a moment when the Lara on screen is anything other than the girl of the title. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIBIO'S "LOVERS' CARVINGS")