What it’s about
Born on Christmas Day to a Catholic family in Montreal, Zachary Beaulieu (Grondin) enjoys the fawning attention of his working-class father (Cote) as a youth, but senses early on that he’s different from his two older brothers, as does a psychic friend of his mother’s. In his teen years, Zach turns rebellious, further alienating his father with his music, hair, clothes, and most contentiously–his sexual confusion. As good times and bad visit the entire Beaulieu clan, Zach learns to cope with self-doubt, and the weakness of a father who refuses to accept him.
Why we love it
Set in the 1970s, “C.R.A.Z.Y.” is a funny, touching, revelatory drama about a dysfunctional family and the growing pains of a teenager tormented by his burgeoning bisexuality. As played by Grondin, Zach is an outsider in his own family, a devotee of David Bowie with a stylish flair for fashion and hip rock music who's fighting a losing battle with all the testosterone in his home, represented by his homophobic dad and bullying, drug-addicted older brother, Raymond (Pierre-Luc Brillant). Vallee brings a lot of humor and tenderness to his character-driven drama, while orchestrating an array of conflicts that have a gut-wrenching, true-to-life feel.
Marc-Andre Grondin, Michel Cote, Danielle Proulx Jean-Marc Vallee