Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

larapha Crazy is a family film. To me, it has particular anguishing moments as I review it in a Christmas day. A day to be always remembered as a day of frustration. I can easily relate to the main character of the movie, being born in 1958 in a working class family just like him (happily not at Christmas time). The film can be as destroying as one wants of Christmas fantasies and family attitudes towards sexuality. Like the main character, I too delayed the internal coming out as much as I could, and it only sorted out with difficulty and pain. The relationship father son mother is, to me, splendidly shown. I fell like myself being described in the triangle where the mother protects the son from the furies and frustrations of the father, who wants to transform the son in something he isn't, an idealized version of himself. In the film it's even worst: none of the sons become the father's desire, all have their own trajectories, more or less developed, but all authentical. I wouldn't describe this as a 'gay' film, even though the theme is largely discussed. It's much more than that. It's the microcosms of issues that form a family, and it not always simple solutions.

Harry Waterman An epic drama of the story of a young man questioning his sexuality, growing up through the sixties and seventies in Quebec, born into a strictly catholic family of five brothers, each crazier than the last. C.R.A.Z.Y is a really affective film as it was one of the only films I've ever seen to make me really think about my own crazy existence and what life really means. Life is too love and to celebrate our indifferences. The outfits and nostalgic soundtrack are all exceedingly impressive, as are the performances and sequences set to music. Sometimes C.R.A.Z.Y is tongue-in-cheek, sometimes its heartbreaking and sometimes its surrealistic, however what can't be denied is this relatively unknown and genre-less epic is quite fantastic.

gizmomogwai The Toronto International Film Festival has revised its Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time once again, and of the four new additions I hadn't yet seen, CRAZY (2005) is the first I've sought out. Set in Quebec in the '60s and '70s, CRAZY is a family drama revolving around Zac, fourth of five brothers, who gradually realizes he's gay. His father, once close to the small child, becomes disapproving of how "soft" he's turning out, moving on to outright homophobia when he catches Zac with another boy. Zac also conflicts with an older brother who becomes a second shame to the family as a drug addict.CRAZY, which won the Genie Award for best film of 2005, is a solid and honest drama, partly realistic and tied together with themes of Christmas, miracles, songs and sexual identity. It's hardly the first film to come along about homosexuality, but it still came at a relevant time, with the debate about gay marriage in Canada reaching its boiling point. Homophobia is an old issue, but at the same time, the film's politics are a little more modern than classic Quebec cinema invoking themes of nationalism. I don't think the purpose was so much to justify homosexuality (today's audiences are a little more tolerant already), but to make the viewer feel for what it's like to have a family break down over intolerance and heal.CRAZY isn't better than Les Bons Debarras (1979), booted off the Top 10 this year, or Incendies (2010), which was dubiously snubbed. Still, it's a quality film and recommended.

bandw This is a family drama that focuses on Zac as he matures from childhood to a young adult in Quebec in the 70s and 80s. Zac has four brothers, a doting mother, and a domineering father. The main dynamic centers on Zac's struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality. His homophobic father causes him much agony and forces him into a state of denial. He tries a heterosexual relationship, beats up on a gay schoolmate, and sees a psychiatrist--but his underlying sexuality keeps resurfacing. I thought Marc-André Grondin, as the teenage Zac, did a fine job in portraying Zac's confusion and anguish without overplaying those emotions.Initially the movie has a light tone, particularly the scenes where Zac is a young boy, but as the movie goes on the conflict between Zac and his father turns serious. And there is little humor in the depiction of Zac's brother Raymond sinking deeper and deeper into drug addiction.The story is not all that unusual (I'm sure similar situations are being lived out in thousands of households as I write this in 2010), but the presentation here is most engaging and believable.I did not get the multiple meanings of the title until the final credits.