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| Paul Dano in a scene from "Love & Mercy." Photo by Francois Duhamel, courtesy Roadside Attractions. |
There are many moments in “Love & Mercy” when the film earns a place among the best biopics released this decade. They arrive when the filmmakers focus on the artist as a young man, a person with a brilliant mind who can’t control that very brilliance. Sometimes, the audience simply watches the process, but every then and now viewers receive a horrifying glimpse into the chaos swarming inside the artist's mind.
It's the other parts though, the ones focused less on the fall and more on the inevitable resurrection, that curb“Love & Mercy's” wonderment. Those are good moments with bits of terrific acting, but they're burdened wildly by hagiography and they cause the film to fall into the crowd-pleasing traps that afflict much of the genre. Sometimes, as is the case with “Love & Mercy,” watching a man fall apart is much more interesting than watching him put the pieces back together.
This song does both excellently though.
The central figure in “Love & Mercy” is legendary musician Brian Wilson, who is portrayed by Paul Dano and John Cusack during two key parts of his life. Dano's occurs in the mid 1960s during his production of the seminal Beach Boys album Pet Sound, when the young man experiences auditory hallucinations as he perfects the strange music that make up that record. He's admired by younger brothers Dennis and Carl (Kenny Wormald and Brett Davern), chided for the eccentric sounds by cousin Mike Love (Jake Abel) and chastised mercilessly by his money-grubbing father and former manager Murry (Bill Camp).
Cusack takes over when the film bounces forth and back into the late 1980s, where Wilson meets fetching auto saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks). This is a lost period for the artist defined by a toxic relationship with abusive therapist Gene Landy (Paul Giamatti), who keeps Wilson under constant surveillance and overloaded on prescription medications. Banks falls hard for the damaged musician and realizes she needs to do something to save Wilson from Giamatti's clutches.
“Love & Mercy's” filmmakers (director Bill Pohlad and writers Oren Moverman and Michael Lerner) avoid a straight narrative of Wilson's life, choosing instead to go with the aforementioned shifts between the two decades. That little narrative trick eliminates the need to show the years Wilson may or may not have spent in bed – the character comments on the mythology of that stretch in the film with uncertainty – and cuts down the rise to prominence story. That’s captured via a montage rounded out with sweet faux home videos.
Makes you feel the same way as this song does.
It's an unconventional choice, but a clever and practical one because the rushed back story leaves more time to watch Wilson in the studio. Those are just glorious moments and give the audience a peek into the making of an unforgettable album – a process accompanied by songs from Pet Sounds – that includes dogs, a tempered piano and a lot of improvising as musicians try to match the music playing within Wilson's mind.
His head is a scary place to be though, as shown via the album's underlying cacophony, the voices percolating in Wilson's head, and a few odd camera angles that give that glimpse into Wilson's creative process. As his creativity rises, the young man falls further and further down the rabbit hole until he's completely lost within himself and the cavalcade of drugs he's taken to make the trip a little easier. Dano does an incredible job as the young Wilson, portraying the young Wilson as an innocent man who can't break out of himself. It's sad enough watching a person go through what Wilson does; Dano makes sure it hurts.
Sort of like this.
I just wish “Love & Mercy” spent more time with the young Wilson instead of shifting over quite so much to the older one. While Dano’s section is highlighted by ingenuity and a melancholy that fits the Pet Sounds album, the Cusack half is a bit too conventional, a bit too much like what one would expect from films like “Ray” or “Walk the Line.” Some of it is on Cusack's performance – he’s better than he's done in years, but nowhere near Dano's level – although the main problem is a certain amount of narrative easiness that removes the nuance from Wilson's character. The film becomes a bit too devoted to the Cusack version, seemingly afraid of showing the complications that defined the younger man. Still, there's plenty of good to be found in the older half, with the highlights rooted in Banks' nuanced performance as Ledbetter and in Giamatti, who is terrifically unhinged as Landy.
Like the artist it highlights, “Love & Mercy” has a brilliance that’s impossible to duplicate, but it shines so brightly it can’t be sustained for 120 minutes.
This, however, is perfection.
Review: Four out of Five Stars
Click here to see the trailer.
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 120 minutes
Genre: Biographical
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Target audience: Beach Boys lovers and anyone interested in a good biopic.
Target audience: Beach Boys lovers and anyone interested in a good biopic.
Take the whole family?: The rating is a fine fit, but I doubt many 13-year-olds would be down for this film.
Theater or Netflix?: Seems like a good Netflix choice considering the dearth of theatrical viewing options.
Are the Beach Boys underappreciated?: Rolling Stone rated the band the 12th greatest of all time in 2010, so it does get the critical respect. But I don't think that translates to the average music listener due in large part to the heavy rotation of those early 1960s hits, which are fluffy fun but not much more. As the film points out, few bands dared to challenge the Beatles during the '60s; only one ever succeeded in doing so.
Watch this as well?: “American Splendor,” which also stars Paul Giamatti, is worth a visit – both are unique biographies of rather eccentric people. For a more somber companion, check out “Control,” Anton Corbijn's haunting and melancholic biopic about troubled Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis.
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