By Jim Gilles
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 5/28/22 – Screening on Tuesday, May 31, at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood is Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. (Canada, in Québécois French, with English subtitles, 2005). It is the story of Zac Beaulieu, a young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, who struggles to reconcile his emerging gay identity with his father’s conservative Catholic values. It is part of a series of LGBTQ+ television shows entitled “The Outfronts” on Saturday, June 4, through Monday, June 6, as part of Gay Pride Month and sponsored by Los Angeles-based Outfest in conjunction with the major cable and streaming networks. Featured in theatrical format at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood and also are Love, Victor, Queer Firefighers OnScreen, Legendary, High School Musical: The Series, Motherland: Fort Salem,Yellowjackets, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and more. To attend the screening of C.R.A.Z.Y. at the TCL Chinese Theatres on May 31, reserve a seat by emailing [email protected]. Seats are free for Outfest members. For information on the overall schedule of “The Outfronts,” go to https://www.theoutfronts.com/
Although C.R.A.Z.Y, is in part a gay coming-of-age story, it’s told without the explicit sex one might expect, making this film much more in line with the work of Gus Van Sant than Gregg Araki. Based on co-writer François Boulay’s memories of growing up gay in French Canada. The privacy that is accorded to Zac’s experiences (his two sexual encounters with young men happen off camera) is actually somewhat refreshing, with a subtlety that seems far more in keeping with the character’s reluctance to come to terms with being gay. The film is also a bizarre family drama infused with a mixture of the qualities that make French Canadian cinema great: devout spirituality, odd folklore and the kind of irreverent humor that fundamentalists think ought to go straight to hell.
It is filled with quietly hilarious, but also cringe-making moments, such as the time Zac (played by Marc-André Grondin) earnestly sings along to Ziggy Stardust in full Ziggy make-up, until the moment Antoine storms in and tackles him. It is only then that Zac realizes half the neighborhood has been viewing his performance through an open bedroom window. It also doesn’t hurt that the actor who plays Zac was considered Canada’s Gael Garcia Bernal and spends a lot of time looking handsome in tight jeans and eyeliner. One wall of Zac’s bedroom looks like the cover of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon.”
Zac Beaulieu (Grondin) always knows there’s something different about him. Born dead on Christmas Day, 1960, his survival is suitably miraculous, and his loving mother Laurianne (Danielle Proulx) is convinced that Zac has a gift. But all Zac really wants is to be close to his father, kindly but old-fashioned Gervais (Michel Côte). Gervais is a typical working man, toughly affectionate to his five sons, but keen for them to espouse his values, and Zac idolizes him.
Zac enjoys his moment in the sun as his father’s favorite – relishing the drives home from school where they enjoy secret trips to the chip shop. But he also likes to help his mother and push his baby brother, Ivan, in his pram. Somehow, even at six, he knows his father will not approve. As Zac grows up, he struggles to suppress his own desires in order to be the man his father wants him to be. The irony is that, as an adolescent in the seventies, Zac fits in perfectly – Ziggy Stardust, the Rolling Stones – all androgyny, cheekbones, and long hair. But suburban Quebec isn’t quite ready for Zac and the family struggle to deal with the rumors that surround him.
As Zac goes through his mid-teens to early twenties, Zac isn’t sure if he can live up to the ideals of either his mother or especially his father. A young man with stress-induced asthma, Zac just wants to be what he considers normal, which includes getting rid of his asthma. But more importantly, he wants to get rid of the underlying thoughts that he has and which most going through puberty have, but that for him are becoming more prevalent as he grows older.
C.R.A.Z.Y. (the initials of the five boys, Christian, Raymond, Antoine, Zachary, Yvan – and also the title of the Patsy Cline song that underscores the film) could be seen as a kind of companion piece to Brokeback Mountain. Just like Ennis and Jack, Zac tries to deny his sexuality to fit into the stereotypically masculine mold that his father represents (and his older brothers are facets of – the brain, the sport, the biker; he even moves in with a girlfriend (Natasha Thompson) for a while, but finally has the courage to break free and win acceptance on his own terms. Zac is luckier than Ennis and Jack though – he lives in a city, and has a kind and loving mother, and crucially was born ten years later, into a rapidly changing and more tolerant world – in short, he has options.
Marc-Andre Grodin is brilliant as Zac, alternating a cool adolescent cockiness with baffled hurt as he struggles to connect with the father who abandoned him. It helps that he looks like a cross between Rufus Wainwright and a young Keanu Reeves, and suits the seventies androgyny and eighties punk fashions down to the ground. As do the regular family gatherings at Christmas where Zac always gets the biggest present – and usually the biggest disappointment (wanting a pram, getting a train set) – the endless squabbling feels completely authentic, culminating in a fist fight at the wedding of his friend Christina.
C.R.A.Z.Y. was the official Canadian entry for the “Best Foreign Language Film” category at the 2005 Academy Awards, but it did not end up as one of the five foreign language films to be nominated. The music rights for the film ate up most of the profits from the film. Jean-Marc Vallée was a Canadian filmmaker, editor and screenwriter from Montreal. He directed Black List, C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria, Wild, Dallas Buyers Club, Los Locos, Loser Love and Café de Flore. He also created the HBO shows Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects. He passed away on Christmas Day 2021.