4 out of 5

Director: Alain Berliner

Ma Vie En Rose is not a difficult movie to watch. For it’s potentially huge subject matter undertaking – gender identity in children – the script by director Alain Berliner and Chris Vander Stappen stays pretty grounded to its main character, Ludovic, and thus stays with a mostly child’s view of the going-ons. The plot: a young boy who, by his understanding, will grow up to be a girl. He wants to marry another young boy in his neighborhood when he grows up, and he has dreams of floating off to a Barbie-type land where he can be appreciated as beautiful in his princess dresses. This ends up causing complications for his parents – at his father’s job, at his school, and in the family’s neighborhood. The film has a lot of eye candy, choosing a Gilliam-esque route of showing what the boy is envisioning instead of getting too entangled in the emotions behind the matter, and this works to keep the tone light-hearted and true to a child’s probably simple view of the matter. The parents are, on the whole, understanding, though the viewer and child are put through some difficult moments while they adjust. Still, it could be a lot worse. Which is a feeling that inhabits the movie – it is safe. Even though you really can’t forsee the happy ending, you sense it will be okay, and this is reflected in an 11th-hour turnaround that speaks of a movie structure with a required walk into the sunset. Overall, this is both a positive and negative. Kudos to the film for choosing a difficult subject and making it feel very normal, and manageable, which would seem to have been the movie’s intent. But there’s another film to be made here – one that could have been worked in via a more bold director or script. But you could argue that that could be for better or worse. Regardless, I was left wondering if I was supposed to be moved or just entertained.