Love & Mercy (Brian Wilson biopic)

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Harold
Into the Groove
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Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:56 pm

Love & Mercy (Brian Wilson biopic)

Post by Harold »

I saw Love & Mercy, the well-reviewed new biopic about Brian Wilson, over the weekend, and thought it might be of interest to the forum.

The film, directed by Bill Pohlad (who's primarily a producer, of such films as 12 Years a Slave and Brokeback Mountain), alternates between two narrative tracks and time periods: the span stretching from approximately mid-1965 to 1967, when Brian (played by Paul Dano) was making his most groundbreaking music even as he was beginning to fall apart psychologically; and the late 1980s, when the older Brian (played by John Cusack), a shambling near-wreck under the thumb of the notoriously manipulative psychologist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), meets Melinda (Elizabeth Banks), a warm, patient woman who falls in love with him and tries to help him escape Landy's control (Melinda is now Mrs. Wilson, and was a consultant on the film).

I enjoyed the film tremendously, and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, although obviously it will have greater resonance if you're already a Beach Boys fan (and a devotee of Pet Sounds in particular). The latter-day sections of the movie are effective and moving, if somewhat cliched (Cusack and Banks work well together, and although Landy's character is a thankless, one-dimensional monster, Giamatti is such a great actor that you're almost willing to forgive the shameless deck-stacking).

The Sixties sections, though, are nothing short of exhilarating and extraordinary. The scenes depicting the studio sessions at which Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations" were painstakingly recorded are incredibly well-researched and almost look like documentary footage, and they thrillingly give you the sense that you're watching and listening to Wilson's often-radical (and puzzling to others, including his bandmates - this movie certainly does nothing to alter the traditional Beach Boys narrative of "Brian Wilson, Genius vs. Mike Love, Super-Dick") ideas coming to life. Even the simplest moments, like Brian instructing Hal Blaine exactly how to hit the opening drumbeat of "Wouldn't It Be Nice," are charged with wonder. So many musical biopics shortchange the actual music, or get so much wrong they become ludicrous. Love & Mercy gets the music, and gets it right.

Of course, none of this would work if we don't believe that the young man on screen is Brian Wilson; thanks to Paul Dano, we do, and then some. Dano is absolutely brilliant, in every respect. He looks like Wilson (which, it must be said, Cusack emphatically does not), he credibly sounds like Wilson in a couple of scenes where he has to do his own singing and playing (notably, a long take in which he plays "God Only Knows" for his passive-aggressive, emotionally abusive father Murry), and - most importantly - he convincingly portrays both Brian's musical genius and his increasing mental fragility. It's a powerful, moving performance, by far the best work yet by this gifted young actor (best known as Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood), and Dano should be rewarded with an Oscar nomination. It's probably the best performance I've seen so far in 2015, and Love & Mercy is one of the best films I've seen this year.
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