Directed by Céline Sciamma. Starring Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana, Jeanne Disson, Sophie Cattani, Mathieu Demy Club, IFI, Dublin, 84 min

TEN-YEAR-OLD Laure (Zoé Héran) moves to a new town, where she introduces herself to her neighbours as a boy named Mickaël. Dad is working, mom is heavily pregnant and kid sister Jeanne is always looking for a playmate, so Laure’s transsexual ruse offers an escape from her girlish responsibilities. But as a new term approaches and Mickaël’s chum Lisa develops a crush on the new “boy”, a schoolyard showdown becomes inevitable.

A vast improvement on director Céline Sciamma's Waterlillies, Tomboywisely eschews that film's entirely bogus naturalism but can't quite evade the suspicion that it's arthouse made for export.

In keeping with this year's chilling vogue for attention-seeking female directors (see also Love Like Poisonand the incoming Sleeping Beauty), Sciamma flirts with dodgy pre-teen nudity. Is there some hypocritical comfort to be derived from knowing a lady film-maker shot the scenes depicting a naked 10-year-old? We're not so sure.

And, in keeping with the equally unsatisfactory French vogue for decorative vérité, Tomboysoon assumes a contradictorily generic shape. (During a card game of Happy Families, wouldn't you know it, the bi-curious heroine draws "La Fille")

This, to be fair, allows the film to come into its own. Tomboyis never better than when it displays a keen awareness of audience expectations. Sciamma works small, predictable set pieces – going for a wee in the woods without the other boys seeing, Lisa's increasingly determined approaches ("It'll be just you and me") – into seat-edge suspense.

It's enough to justify the cover charge, though it doesn't explain the picture's recent victories at LGBT sidebars in Berlin and San Francisco. Tomboyis pretty and pastoral and professional and ably performed. But winning a Teddy used to mean Derek Jarman or Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Where did all the radical, badass stuff go?