C.R.A.Z.Y.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée co-wrote the screenplay and assembled the soundtrack.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée conceived of the film when he and his wife met François Boulay while staying in a cottage in the Eastern Townships, Quebec. Boulay told them about his childhood and four brothers, with memories Vallée found sometimes amusing and sometimes concerning.[3] At Vallée's urging, Boulay later mailed Vallée a screenplay draft called Random Souvenirs of my Life based on his childhood, totaling 100 pages.[4] Vallée added elements about the mother character and began shaping a song list.[3] After seeing Good Will Hunting (1997), Vallée considered setting the film in Boston, but actor Michel Côté read the screenplay and persuaded Vallée that it was a fundamentally Quebec story.[4]

Vallée and Boulay worked on the screenplay for five years, finishing by November 2000. The projected budget of $8.9 million had to be reduced to $7.3 million before some sponsorship from Telefilm Canada could be secured.[5]

Shooting began in April 2004, but when the project ran out of money, filming temporarily ceased in the summer. Michel Côté made a personal donation to restart the project.[5]

Sets were generally inexpensive, though the film did require a large portion of the budget for special effects.[6] Art director Patrice Vermette made many decorations for the sets accurate for the periods.[7] In addition to being set in Montreal, Montreal was used as a filming location.[8] The scenes set in Jerusalem were filmed in Essaouira, Morocco, with the sand located one kilometre from the city being employed for desert shots.[9]

Nearly 10% of the budget was spent on acquiring song rights for the soundtrack, with the cost being $600,000.[10][11] Producers spent two and a half years obtaining the rights for all of them, and Vallée surrendered his salary to help pay for them.[12] Period music is an important element of the film, highlighting characters and recurrent themes and events in Zac's coming of age.[10][13] The soundtrack includes songs by Pink Floyd ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond," "The Great Gig in the Sky"), The Rolling Stones ("Sympathy for the Devil"), David Bowie ("Space Oddity"), Jefferson Airplane ("White Rabbit"), The Cure ("10:15 Saturday Night"), Giorgio Moroder ("From Here to Eternity"), Elvis Presley ("Santa Claus Is Back in Town"), and many others.[10][12][13] "Sympathy for the Devil" alone cost $138,000, as it is used for two minutes, 25 seconds.[11]

The Charles Aznavour song "Emmenez-moi" is repeated over and over in the film, often sung by the father. He also sings another Aznavour song — "Hier Encore", as part of Zac's 20th birthday celebrations. The title derives from the first letter in the names of the five brothers: Christian, Raymond, Antoine, Zachary and Yvan,[3] and also refers to their father's abiding love of Patsy Cline's song "Crazy", which itself is used as a recurring motif in the film.[4]

In its first two weeks, C.R.A.Z.Y. grossed $2 million in Quebec alone.[3] After seven weeks, the provincial gross reached C$3.6 million.[16] By October 2005, the film made nearly $6 million in Quebec theatres, placing second in the summer season provincial box office to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.[17] By March 2006, the film made over $6.2 million in Canadian theatres.[18] By that time, the gross outside of Quebec was $300,000.[19]

The film finished its run grossing $6.2 million in Quebec alone. It was the third highest-grossing film in Quebec in 2005, following Revenge of the Sith and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.[5]

In Canada, Susan Walker of The Toronto Star assessed the film as "moving, funny, truthful".[20] Martin Bilodeau praised the film in Le Devoir for its ambition and magic.[21] In Exclaim!, Allan Tong praised it as "a funny, infectious ride through Quebecois pop culture of the '60s and '70s", and honest with vitality.[22]

Liz Beardsworth from Empire positively reviewed the film for its acting, citing Marc-Andre Grondin and Michel Coté, and wit.[23] Jay Weissberg from Variety declared it a "bouncy coming-of-age tale" with great music and capable performances from Cote and Grondin.[24] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C+, with Jeff Labrecque writing it lacked character development.[25] Writing for BBC, Jamie Woolley remarked on the stylistic photography, found a few scenes overlong but concluded the film added up to more than the value of each scene combined.[26]

In December 2005, it was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's annual Canada's Top Ten list of the year's best films.[27]

C.R.A.Z.Y. has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 28 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.12/10. The Critics Consensus reads, "Balancing heart and humor against outstanding work from a talented cast, C.R.A.Z.Y. proves the coming-of-age formula can still produce powerful results".[28] In 2015, the Toronto International Film Festival placed C.R.A.Z.Y. eighth in the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time.[29]

The film was submitted for consideration for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[4] but was not nominated.