Nicole Oakley (Kirsten Dunst) is the troubled 17-year-old daughter of a wealthy congressman (Bruce Davison) slacking off with her best friend Maddy (Taryn Manning). While picking up trash on the beach after a DUI, she meets Carlos Nuñez (Jay Hernandez) and his friends. Carlos takes the bus to her rich school everyday. He's a straight A student who aims to be a Naval pilot. They become romantic but it's a struggle with her personal problems. Her father tells him to stay away before her problems will cause him trouble.Kirsten Dunst is certainly beautiful and great at being a little crazy. She's not even really crazy in this movie. She's more of a struggling teenager who gets drunk to cope with her lost mother. Jay Hernandez is not charming or big enough to lead but he is fine as an earnest student. I also don't like the title. It's a teen melodrama that could have been great. It is overwrought that only a teen melodrama could be. Yet the climax isn't that dramatic.

Kirsten Dunst's portrayal of an out-of-control early-stage alcoholic/other-drug addict is decent in terms of behaviors. In classic fashion, she blames everyone else for all her problems, is completely irresponsible and turns on a dime against those who are out of favor (her doting dad, for example).The portrayal of enabling isn't bad either. Good boy falls in love with exciting addict. However, in the real world he would have enabled her to her grave. In the absence of the boyfriend, her completely unaware father would have insured she died from her disease. The key problem with the ending--which ruins the movie for the addiction-aware--is that she doesn't die OR get sober. In terms of pure fantasy, the movie ranks with "The Thin Man" series, in which caring, considerate and competent alcoholic PI Nick Charles is never nasty--yeah, right--and "Lost Weekend," in which writer Don Birnam easily gets sober at the end. Sorry, that just doesn't happen.While the movie clearly shows that an excellent upbringing is no impediment to alcoholism, it implies that poor behaviors cause alcoholic drinking. As I have written in four books on the subject and repeatedly point out in my free on-line addiction report, this is one of the great myths of addiction that serves only to perpetuate the disease. The movie's ending can easily cause the uninitiated to believe that "love" and "working" with the addict gets her sober. Every recovering addict alive with at least five years' sobriety will admit that what got them sober was uncompromising tough love and that getting sober was essential for a return to civilized behaviors.If the movie had shown Kirsten's character going into rehab and coming out clean, I might have rated the movie a five. But that would have required either dad or nice boyfriend setting proper boundaries and offering uncompromising tough love--in which case I might have rated the movie a seven. Sorry, but all those comments about "realistic portrayal," "slight substance abuse problem," "what teen doesn't drink?" and "the talk between dad and daughter at the end of the movie is utterly believable" are written by viewers who don't have a clue about addiction. And because of a fatally flawed ending, "Crazy/Beautiful" fails to shed light on the most destructive disease known to man.

i saw Crazy/Beautiful more than 4 or 5 times and i still find it as charming as ever.i really found Nicole to be very cool.i would like to have girlfriend like her :)(lol).she is portrayed as a girl who likes to have fun and also let people around her enjoy.Carlos's condition is very aptly portrayed on screen. he is from a lower middle class background so definitely his goals are a priority.but just then both of them find each other. they spend time and have fun. they also eventually have a clash but at the end Carlos discovers that its love which will hold him and make him better.so he breaks all rules and dogmas and he risks everything and in the end they both emerge successful and Nicole helps him to enroll into flying academy.Nicole is the most sweetest girl in the movie and very caring.the movie is fun,has emotions and will touch you deep. u will end up being and feeling different. see it to believe it.. best wishes..

I saw this film after having watched a Prime Time Live in which a particularly disturbed step family is profiled using fixed cameras throughout their home. The father-daughter relationship portrayed in Crazy Beautiful struck me as pretty authentic: the dad, distracted by his new wife and baby, constantly takes the wife's side in her battles with his daughter, and blames his daughter for just about everything. Not only does she not get Dad's attention, she gets his blame. The whole thing felt completely real.So the two main characters are from different classes, but given their relatively young age, it doesn't impede their love. Love and realizing that that love can make them whole is tantalizingly palpable in Crazy Beautiful and overrides everything. It, not class, is the point. I could believe that years from now, they would be each other's strength. They were meant to be together.And yet….the happy ending was pursued with a uniquely American zeal. A zeal for neat and tidy endings. All the complications that had spilled out so beautifully had to be swept up into orderly piles so that Dad no longer resented ANYthing, and for her family it was smooth sailing from here on out. How Carlos's mother felt about the crazy American girl, I guess is completely inconsequential.