Love & Mercy

This is the story of Brian Wilson during two time periods. In 1964, Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) has a panic attack and quits touring with the band. Instead he concentrates on writing for the new record Pet Sounds. He struggles from his abusive father and starts hearing voices. In the 80s, Brian (John Cusack) is under the control of his therapist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti). He buys a car from saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) who eventually breaks Landy's hold on him.

This is a compelling biopic of an interesting person. Paul Dano really hits it out of the park. His section has some great scenes. On its own, John Cusack does a great job. Put together, I can't help but think that Cusack is doing a passable imitation of Dano's performance. I'm not judging their relative acting skills. I just think that Dano has always played this type of character and he simply fits better. I'm certain that Dano would be nominated for an Oscar if he played both time periods. Landy is the villain of the piece and Giamatti plays him with gusto. For a more nuanced character, the movie needs to show his character saving Brian at the beginning. Splitting the time period so neatly does lessen some important sections of Brian's life.

Brian Wilson's story is worthy of a movie. Neither his creative genius or his mental illness were appreciated until years after the fact. His childhood, as was Michael Jackson's 15 years later , shaped the adult life he inherited. His creative genius allowed and encouraged him to be used by others, including the other "Beach Boys". Mike Love is finally exposed in this film. The story is very interesting. The casting very good, the acting excellent. John Cusack hasn't been this good …maybe never. Elizabeth Banks will be a feature actor after this film. Dano did a very good job. Giamarti might have been a little over the top but to someone who appreciates the Beach Boys and music in general, the scenes from the recording studio are priceless. My fault finding with this movie are the direction and editing. Too long, too dry in spots. A better director would have won an Academy Award with this story

Personal genius has been brilliantly portrayed in film before: "A Beautiful Mind" for maths; "Amadeus" for classical music; and more recently "A Theory of Everything" for cosmology. Behind such genius is often a degree of dysfunction, if not borderline madness.

Here with "Love and Mercy" we get an insight into the creative churning of Wilson's tortured mind. But it is very much a time-banded view, focused on two key periods of his life: 1966, with Paul Dano ("12 Years a Slave"; "Looper") playing Wilson, and the 1990's where Wilson – severely drug-damaged, mentally ill and now played by John Cusack - is being taken for a ride by an unscrupulous and dangerous psychiatrist, Dr Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti). Playing a key role in his recovery is car saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) who Wilson desperately latches onto as a drowning man might grab a life-vest.

Whilst the film could be described as a game of two halves, this is not how it is played out. We jump between both eras without warning, which works extremely well in maintaining the interest in the two parallel stories.

In biopic terms, the 60's segments are probably the more gripping, providing a riveting insight into the production techniques of the iconic "Pet Sounds" album, frequently cited as one of the most innovative and creative albums ever released. The film also features superbly recreated 'old footage' (cinematography by Robert D. Yeoman) showing Beach Boy TV slots and video productions. Wilson's genius is neatly reflected through the admiration of the session musicians: they'd "played with them all" – Sinatra, Presley, Sam Cooke, etc – but Wilson was something else entirely.

Paul Dano is just superb as the troubled youngster, physically and mentally abused by his father (an excellent Bill Camp) and exhibiting mental instability even before the dangers of LSD become evident. His slide into near insanity is brilliantly reflected in an audio soundscape that merges snatched Beach Boy fragments and natural sounds into a cacophony. If Edward Tize and his sound department doesn't get nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound Mixing there is no justice in the world.

In the 90's segments, Cusack delivers his best performance in years as the older Wilson. And after being rude about Elizabeth Banks' directing skills for "Pitch Perfect 2", I feel I have to express my admiration for her portrayal of perplexed astonishment as Melinda, a woman with a mission. Both extremely subtle and utterly enjoyable performances.

In contrast, the excellent Giamatti seems rather over the top as the scheming Landy, although internet articles suggest that it is a scarily accurate portrayal of the degree of control he exerted.

Directed by Bill Pohlad (someone normally found in the production office), it's difficult to fault such a lovingly crafted film. The pre-credits reference to a 'building scream' (I assume relating to the 'goose-bumpy' bit of "Good Vibrations") is never resolved. And (as I rather missed it in the film) the motives for Landy's extreme actions are a bit obscure (in reality, the Wilson family later discovered he was named as a 70% beneficiary in Wilson's will). However, this film, which deserved a broader and better-publicised release, stands as a superb tribute to an iconic musician and comes with a "highly recommended" from me.

(If you enjoyed this review, please see the illustrated version at bob-the-movie-man.com and enter your email address to receive future reviews. Thanks).

It's no secret that with the plethora of biopics we get every year, there is a formula that many of them follow. Just last year, we got to see the stories of a wayward soul who ventured out on a soul-cleansing journey through the mountains, a computer genius who cracked a presumably unbreakable code during war times, one of the deadliest snipers in American history, and one of funk's greatest musicians told on film. Bill Pohland's "Love & Mercy," concerning the life of Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson, is bound to be written off by some as another interchangeable biopic, but if you've seen so much as a trailer for this film, you know this is something deeper, richer, and more complex than formula could ever begin to handle.

"Love & Mercy" focuses on two times pieced together, as Pohland and the writing team of Michael Alan Lerner and Oren Moverman segway between the "past" Brian Wilson, played by Paul Dano, and the "future" Brian Wilson, played by John Cusack, never telling us exactly where the present lies. We follow Wilson during his rise with his brothers and friends to make The Beach Boys one of America's most successful boy bands in the 1960's. Despite initial success with The Beach Boys, following a severe panic attack, Wilson resigns from the band to focus on writing back home in California. He's convinced he has found the formula for "the greatest rock album ever," experimenting with a plethora of different melodies, instruments, and lyrics to create something one can not only hear and enjoy, but feel.

While undergoing this arduous process, Wilson is met with little vocal support. He receives the casual head nods from most of his bandmates, with the exception of Michael Love (Jake Abel), who constantly criticizes his creative decisions, and his father, who is still bitter after being fired by his own son. While focusing on this, we frequently jump into Brian's life in the future, where he is placed under the care of Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti in another brutal but compelling role), who over-medicates and physically and mentally abuses him. Brian winds up meeting and falling for a Cadillac saleswoman named Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), who constantly wants to be with him but finds Dr. Landy to be a smothering force preventing their connection from growing.

Pohland's experimental structure for "Love & Mercy" is nothing shy of remarkable, but the fact that it doesn't make the film feel off balance or tonally uneven is a total cinematic anomaly. While frequently weaving through different time periods seems ripe for complete chaos for a film trying to keep a consistent tone, "Love & Mercy" handles the challenge beautifully, humanizing Brian regardless of his age and working to find the core idea in each scene.

I've long asserted that Paul Dano is one of the finest actors in cinema today and "Love & Mercy" is another link in his ever-growing chain of terrific performances. Similar to his role in "Prisoners," Dano must remain relatively expressionless and look as if nothing is occurring inside his head, when really, there is too much going on in his head to accurately communicate. Dano, once again, blindsides the audience by taking a role that seems too facile to carry a film and making it a fleshed out, thoroughly impressive performance. John Cusack also delivers a role much like Dano, channeling his kind of emptiness so well that it's like watching two actors in different time periods of their life playing a character in different time periods of his own life. The result is a mesmerizing, surreal experience.

"Love & Mercy"'s vignette-style structure examines the heartbreak, the joy, the contentment, and the unmatched physical and mental pressure of Brian in a remarkably tender way. Robert Yeoman's cinematography also paints a picture that, while littered with nostalgia in look, costume design, and general vibes, captures Brian's hectic environment so affectionately that it becomes strangely beautiful. Through all of Brian's madness, his unpredictable panic attacks, episodes of rage, and the contemptuous relationship with his father, Pohland searches to find attributes of Brian to showcase in a way that's impacting.

Calling "Love & Mercy" a "mesmerizing, surreal experience" is an appropriate, if ostensibly exaggerating, summation. Similar to how Brian can't always communicate the beauty behind the sound of his music, I can't quite put my finger on what works with this film and in what manner. This film, however, snuck up on me in a way that was remarkably subtle but lasting and, even though it's been several days since I've seen it, the effect remains strong in a way that only enhances the film's compelling and unique aura.

I had no idea what this film was about. I thought it would be another musical biopic like "Walk the Line" or "Ray". It's nothing like those movies. This is the most intense, in-depth, and soulful look at the fragility of the creative mind since "All That Jazz". "All That Jazz" is the best film ever made about choreography and dance, this is the best film ever made about rock 'n roll. Dark, often depressing, but also exhilarating, "Love & Mercy", like "All That Jazz", captures the sense of loneliness and despair many creative geniuses suffer. And when the music starts, it's cool, loud, and breathtaking. "A Beautiful Mind" is the best film ever made about mental illness, because it's an unflinching and compassionate portrait rendered with remarkable artistic skill by director Ron Howard and acted by Russell Crowe. "Love & Mercy" is its equal: Director Bill Pohlad tells an equally moving story of a man's mind falling apart, every bit as skillfully as Ron Howard, and the performances by Paul Dano and John Cusack are each Oscar worthy - as was Russell Crowe's. And first and foremost, I found it to be one of the most painful and frightening portrayals of a tyrannical father ever put on film. Brian Wilson was surrounded by monsters, real and imaginary. In many ways the Beach Boys were a performing family, like the Osmonds or the Jackson 5, a band of brothers at the mercy of a brutal father. I could go on and on,there's a lot going on here - it's a terrific love story too - this movie delivers on so many levels.