By the time Brian Wilson’s family pried psychotherapist Eugene Landy away from the Beach Boys songwriter the damage was already done, musically.
He never recorded anything to match his masterpieces again.
Some of it was the fault of Landy who intimidated and over-medicated Wilson. Some of it was the fault of Wilson who went from perfectionist joyously channeling the sounds in his head into dazzlingly arranged pop songs to the fragmented incoherence of LSD and mental illness.
And some, maybe most, of the blame went to an authoritarian father, also the band’s manager, whose disapproval Wilson spent his life trying to exorcise.
These are the central threads “Love & Mercy,” a biopic named after a song on Wilson’s first solo album ironically produced by Landy.
It is also a love story with Elizabeth Banks as the woman, a Cadillac salesperson and model, who helped Wilson sever ties with Landy. They later married and adopted five children.
The bullying Landy is played by Paul Giamatti.
“Love & Mercy” is a narratively and stylistically inventive retelling of that journey, full of Beach Boys music, with the early erratic genius played by Paul Dano and the lost man-boy played by John Cusack.
Both bring a wounded, haunted quality to the role/s, especially Cusack’s damaged Wilson “a little boy in a man’s body,” reacting to the obvious with the wonder and confusion of a child.
The strategy of shuffling between both periods, by first time director Bill Pohlad who produced “Wild” and “12 Years A Slave,” rides the wave of cause and effect to show how high Wilson climbed in order to measure how far he fell.
Dano gets the fun part as the youthful Wilson uncomfortable performing live and secluding himself in the studio. Inspired and challenged by The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” Wilson creates the landmark “Pet Sounds” and obsesses over the intensity of the cello in “Good Vibrations,” his “pocket symphony to God.”
The scenes of Wilson recording the elaborately orchestrated “Pet Sounds” will resonate with anyone for whom that album is a touchstone. It was recorded with the studio musicians the Wrecking Crew and members of the Beach Boys, particularly a belligerent Mike Love – the Beach Boy fans love to hate – resented being treated like back up singers, and objected to the uncommercial nature of the material.
“Even the happy songs are sad,” complains Love.
During a meeting in a swimming pool Dano’s rambling Wilson asks his bandmates, which included his two brothers, to “come to the deep end.” Tellingly, they prefer the shallow end and refuse.
The Beach Boys recorded some still powerfully entertaining songs – “In My Room,” “I Get Around,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “California Girls” – that sound like they were recorded today and not an unbelievable 50-years ago. Much as Wilson was influenced by The Four Freshman, Wilson’s signature harmonies, poetic introspection and structural innovation live on in the music of today and in the film made in its image.
***1/2 Three and one half stars
With Paul Dano, John Cusack, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti, Jake Abel, Kenny Wormald, Joanna Going, Max Schneider, Graham Rogers, Brett Davern. Johnny Sneed. PRoduced by Bill Pohlad, Claire Rudnick, John Wells. Written by Oren Moverman, Michael Lerner. Directed by Bill Pohlad. Approximate running time: 120 minutes. Rated PG-13: thematic elements, language, drug use.
Tags: Beach Boys, Eugene Landy, John Cusack, Love & Mercy, Mike Love, Paul Dano Posted by