Me, Myself and Mum

Guillaume Gallienne's autobiographical play about a gender misfit reaches the screen co-written, directed by and starring its creator who won best actor and best film at the French equivalent of the Oscars. On stage, Gallienne created all the characters, but on film - while retaining the framing device of a live performance - he merely plays himself and his elegant, but brittle and reserved mother. He is witty and compelling in both roles, delivering what's probably the finest cross-dressing turn since Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, though the connecting narrative of his misadventures proves somewhat sketchy and episodic. He fails to be straight and sporty in accordance with his conservative French bourgeois upbringing and samples the gay scene, presenting an argument for understanding of those who fit neither macho nor effeminate stereotypes. However, in so doing there's a faint tang of homophobia which, perhaps, unwittingly serves to sustain existing prejudices.