Not a Traditional Biopic (Which Is Good) But Not Completely Successful Either

Rating: 6/10 (22 August 2016)

"Love & Mercy" thankfully avoids the pitfalls that plague most other blah biopics, eschewing the device of taking us through the troubled childhood up through the inspirational finale of whatever famous person's life happens to be the film's subject. While Brian Wilson is the main subject of the film, the movie isn't so much about him as it about his contributions to the Beach Boys' phenomenal success as a band. We don't learn his life story; we witness instead how one of the most troubled passages of his personal life coincided with one of the most fertile period for the group. However, while I was relieved that this didn't end up being a paint by numbers biopic like every other biopic put to screen, I did feel like the filmmakers didn't quite know how to fill the gap where a different movie would have inserted all of the traditional biopic material. Paul Dano and John Cusack give fine performances as the young and older, respectively, Brian Wilson, but there isn't a lot of story to tell here, certainly not enough to warrant the film's 2+ hour running time. The film is at its best when it's depicting the jam sessions during which Wilson came up with some of the Beach Boys' most iconic tunes, but the parts of the film that chronicle the tug-of-war between Wilson's girlfriend (played likeably by Elizabeth Banks) and his doctor (played loathsomely by Paul Giammati) turn into a slog, and unfortunately these make up the bulk of the movie.
And it's odd that a movie about the Beach Boys would feature so little of their music.
Grade: B+