By Ray Pride

JUNE 29, 1998: 

Alain Berliner's bubbly, bubblegum-colored Belgian fantasy is designed and directed as if almost always from the point of view of 7-year old Ludovic (Georges DuFresne, a remarkable coup of casting), who doesn't understand why the kids at school or his teachers or his parents' suburban neighbors and co-workers can't accept him for the cheerful cross-dresser that he is. While Ludo decides after a while that he's a "girlboy," an accident caused when God's hand flung the wrong measure of x and y chromosomes down the chimney, Berliner leaves ambiguous the question of Ludo's nascent sexuality, presenting him as a force (not freak) of nature, rather than a transvestite or "gayboy" in the making. Along with a zesty contemporary pop soundtrack and a marvelous, brisk cutting style, Berliner's movie charms for its delicious design, a Baby Gap fever dream, with a toy cul-de-sac filled with hot pink garage doors, minicars painted opalescent blues and greens, and the occasional grandma in a banana-yellow Fiat convertible. A party in the film's opening scene posits an entire neighborhood of summer-color-clad neighbors descending on the family home, giddy as a musical comedy. It's rare to see such a fully imagined world. As a last treat, Berliner finds a logical and poetic culmination that leaves you smiling for days. 88m.

(Ray Pride)

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