REVIEWED - C.R.A.Z.Y: This sincerely felt French-Canadian picture, a gay coming-of-age story set largely in the 1970s, won every award going in its native land. Sure enough, it is a decent piece of work.

Relating, at a leisurely pace, the ding-dong relationship between a confused youth and his uncomprehending father, C.R.A.Z.Y. has a great sense of place and time and features fine performances from all concerned. It also manages to be impressively non-judgemental towards its various characters: neither the hero's religious mum, his junkie brother nor his often insensitive dad are held up to censure.

That said, there's little here we haven't seen before. And when the film does break new ground, notably during a sequence where parallels are drawn between a New Testament story and the protagonist's plight, it overreaches itself mightily. C.R.A.Z.Y. is the sort of film that engenders admiration and respect, but not - or at least not for this writer - much more than that.

The picture begins with the birth of Zachary (Marc-André Grondin) on Christmas Day, 1960. We are then introduced to his four brothers, the first letters of whose Christian names can, with Zac's, be arranged to spell "crazy". The family, whose conflicts echo those happening contemporaneously in society at large, exists in a constant condition of noisy hubbub. Zac's inclinations towards homosexuality are suspected, but not quite understood. Raymond (Pierre-Luc Brilliant), the eldest boy drifting into drugs and crime, offers less ambiguous cause for concern.

One might argue that the music of the era is as important a character in the film as is any member of Zac's family. The producers forked out a huge portion of their budget on music clearances, and the resulting soundtrack - David Bowie, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones - is evocative if a tad obvious.

A worthwhile enterprise, for all its flaws.