Zachary Beaulieu (Marc-Andre Grondin) is the fourth of five sons, born on 25 December 1960, into a middle-class Catholic family in Quebec. With an ambiguous sexuality and more explicit aesthetic tastes than his brothers, he quickly becomes a pariah at home, particularly in the eyes of his rigidly conservative father Gervais (Michel Cote) and tearaway second-oldest brother Raymond (Pierre-Luc Brillant). As he grows up and his homosexuality becomes increasingly harder to hide, he never stops fighting for his father's love and acceptance. (Meanwhile, his mother Laurianne (Danielle Proulx), who always makes ironed toast for breakfast, swears he's a faith healer.)
C.R.A.Z.Y. won 11 Genie Awards (basically the Canadian Oscars) in 2006 and was named the eight-greatest Canadian film ever made at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, and deservedly so in both cases. Jean-Marc Vallee (who's since made Dallas Buyers Club among other things), drawing on his own adolescence in '60s and '70s Quebec, takes us on a very vivid ride through that era and place (when the so-called "Quiet Revolution" was in full swing; Google it if necessary), with very accurate period design, a smashing period soundtrack, and obviously a nice message about acceptance in every form.
Marc-Andre Grondin is a terrific find: he fills Zac with such vitality and tempestuousness, with fear and loneliness just under the boilerplate (and after seeing this movie, I promise David Bowie's Space Oddity will always remind you of him). Vallee's son Emile also plays Zac as a boy. Danielle Proulx also shines as a housewife who very much knows how and when to bring the boys (her husband included) into line, and Michel Cote creates a father you can ultimately sympathise with despite so much (and who plays Patsy Cline albums and belts Charles Aznavour out repeatedly).
But what always stays with me most about C.R.A.Z.Y., perhaps superficially, is its visuals. Vallee infuses it with a really striking bohemian, Dadaist aesthetic that offers such a rush, particularly in the second half when Zac's glam-rock lifestyle reaches its zenith. Vallee even invokes a tinge of this in the numerous birthday/Christmas scenes.
I have to conclude this way: I'm crazy about C.R.A.Z.Y.
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