A Troubling Trip Inside 1960s Musical Genius

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2015)

This biography of Brian Wilson, the troubled genius at the heart of the 1960s musical group The Beach Boys, is an effectively stylized portrait in which Paul Dano and John Cusack share the lead role at different times in his life. They mesh beautifully as the story moves from the recording of the group's seminal Pet Sounds pop album to a few decades later when, with the help of his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter (played by Elizabeth Banks), Wilson emerges from his shell into some semblance of normality. The fine character actor Paul Giamatti is chilling as psychologist Eugene Landy, who holds Wilson hostage emotionally. (PG-13, 2:00).