Paul Dano as the young Brian Wilson
“LOVE & MERCY” My rating: B+
120 ninutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
Several pages in The Book of Great American Lives should be reserved for the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, whose 72 years have been packed with genius, celebrity, madness and redemption.
There’s more to the Wilson saga than could ever be wedged into just one movie, but Bill Pohlad’s “Love & Mercy” spectacularly chronicles one man’s rise-fall-rise in riveting human (and musical) terms.
Pohlad, a first-time feature director with an impressive list of producing credits (“12 Years a Slave,” “Into the Wild,” “Brokeback Mountain”) and screenwriters Oren Moverman and Michael A. Lerner have come up with a brilliant way of presenting Wilson’s story.
They’ve made two movies: one set in the 1960s starring Paul Dano as the young Brian, the other in the mid-’80s with John Cusack taking on the role. They so cannily entwine the two that just as the first, earlier story is spiraling into tragedy, the second tale, of the middle-aged Brian, is struggling toward recovery.
Let’s acknowledge up front that neither Dano nor Cusack looks much like the real Brian Wilson. Nor do they really resemble each other.
Doesn’t matter. Through some sort of cinematic alchemy, each actor nails the essence of Wilson at different stages of life. And far from triggering a disconnect, the casting of two performers in the same role enhances the story’s richness.
“Love & Mercy” opens with a montage of newsreel-like re-creations of the early Beach Boys in action — on the concert stage, posing for publicity photos on the beach (most of them were not actually surfers), playing for a “Shindig”-like TV show (go-go girls as a backdrop).
These are the heady days of innocence, fame and hit singles. We sense almost immediately, though, that the songwriter and arranger, Brian, stands apart from the group. He’s an odd duck, unnerved by live performances, crippled by panic attacks and driven to create music that he can hear in his head but must struggle to capture on tape.
Elizabeth Banks, John Cusack
The film leaves little question about Wilson’s achievements as a musical innovator. If his early songs lacked “importance” (celebrations of surfing, cars, young love and high school ritual) they were spectacular for Brian’s melodies and complex vocal arrangements. We see Brian working in the studio with Hollywood’s best session musicians (the famous Wrecking Crew, subjects of their own recent documentary), experimenting with exotic instruments, unusual rhythms, unexpected subject matter.
But Brian’s quest is also driving him into mental collapse and drawing heat from other band members who care less for pop art songs than for cash-generating hits. He’s reeling from the psychological beatings of his father (Bill Camp), the band’s one-time manager whose physical discipline has left Brian deaf in one ear (thus the dearth of stereo mixes in most of the Beach Boys’ output).
The young genius is compensating with ever more drugs. He’s getting ready to blow.
The second story begins with the older, burned-out Brian wandering into a Cadillac dealership and engaging saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) in conversation. She both amused and alarmed by this fellow who looks like a bum and behaves like a sad, apologetic wraith.
He talks about the drowning death of his brother Dennis, the children he hasn’t seen in ages, and the year in which he never got out of bed. At least he buys a car.
The relationship between Brian and Melinda (who will become his second wife) is at the heart of “Love & Mercy.” It’s hardly romance at first sight, but gradually Melinda comes to appreciate Brian and his precarious existence.
For Brian is a pawn in the hands of his psychiatrist, Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti in a blood-chilling portrayal of loathesomeness). Dr. Landy dictatorially manages every aspect of Brian’s life from diet to dating, occupying one of Brian’s homes, and enjoying access to his patient’s fortune.
In a way, “Love & Hope” becomes a jailbreak movie, with Melinda cautiously steering Brian away from childlike dependence and back to self awareness. Banks gives the film’s finest performance in a role that might seem rather limited but which in her hands overflows with compassion and intelligence.
Among the film’s unsung heroes is sound designer Mark Agostino, who creates an aural landscape of dialogue and swirling snippets from the Beach Boys’ hits. It’s all so evocative that you could sit through this movie with your eyes closed and still have a tremendous experience.
It goes without saying that the post-breakdown Brian Wilson has produced little music that bears comparison with the brilliance of his work in the ‘60s. Nevertheless, he has emerged from the fog of mental illness to assume his place as husband and father — and in many ways that’s an achievement no less thrilling than “Good Vibrations.”
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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