Love & Mercy gives Brian Wilson the dramatic weight and artistic buoyancy his life story deserves.

Rating: 8/10 (23 June 2015)

I've been waiting a long time for this. I first heard about Love & Mercy when I visited the studio lot of Sunset Gower two summers ago and passed Paul Dano between stages. Part me being too shy and me trying to be professional, I didn't want to disturb him, but nevertheless he seemed too lost in thought to be distracted. And thus, his Brian Wilson, brilliant, tormented, is also constantly lost in the thoughts of his innovative sounds. I've always been fascinated with the life story of Wilson, the album war The Beach Boys had with The Beatles (the band is mentioned but never shown here), and the tragic end with SMiLE. Familiarization with the story certainly helps settle into it, anyone who's not interested in Wilson in the first place may find it quite trivial given their successes, though they half-expected to be flash-in-the-pan rather than influential giants.
The appeal of Love & Mercy is the same appeal of their music, it contrasts the light and the dark of the human condition. The film delivers what the fans want right away and the session sequences of the instrumentals of Pet Sounds within the film's first twenty minutes are absolute bliss. But the film is not a run-of-the-mill biopic that checks the obligational list like a greatest hits montage. Instead it mixes styles, timelines, reality, and hallucinations feeling personal, honest and expressionistic, built from the ground up rather than tracing tested blueprints. Director Bill Pohlad is one of the best producers of the past 10 years, sharing producing credits on Brokeback Mountain, Into The Wild, The Tree of Life and 12 Years A Slave. Love & Mercy is his first major film in 25 years, his first feature fading into obscurity, and that passion he has for this project is palpable.
You may wonder why he didn't hire perhaps a more confident visionary director to do the job. Instead we got a nice middle ground where it's not too overblown or too subtle to feel timid. The film's photography in particular is quite rough around the edges in certain sequences, for instance the documentary style scenes of the Boys recording vocals feel sloppy, but it immediately makes up for it in the shinier 80s scenes. However, it's not a film that spends much money on being cinematic, the cash evidently went to complete a wonderful soundtrack, but instead it's focused on feeling intimate. It has a great patience that revels in the moment, such as 360 degree shots as Wilson works out God Only Knows on the piano and the cellos on Good Vibrations.
The film may feel free-form, but Oren Moverman's script has diligent beat-by-beat structure, something improved from the far too freestyle Bob Dylan bio I'm Not There, and he brings his art of designing conflict that he perfected on the Oscar-nominated script The Messenger, which still feels underrated. It's unfortunate that the three antagonistic forces don't feel as well acted as the trio of protagonists. The actors playing Mike Love and Brian Wilson's father don't have the conviction of Paul Dano. Paul Giamatti's Eugene Levy is overcooked, far too self-aware of his sour motivations, but ignoring the one dimension, he's magnetic as always.
The heart of the film is Elizabeth Banks' Melinda Ledbetter. She's rarely had the chance to shine in a dramatic role like this, but bouncing off John Cusack's 80s Brian she provides a nuanced tenderness that takes skill to come off as sincere. Cusack runs the risk of feeling too odd and child-like, we have to simply trust that this is an accurate portrayal, but when faced with the biggest obstacles his performance is well-measured and his emotional highpoints robs Banks of being the best actor in the show. It's still career best worthy for the both of them though and nothing competes with the wonderful chemistry of 80s Brian playing a small ditty for Melinda then letting it flutter into our memory banks.
Dano can also be distracting and hard to take seriously as the icon, but he's an actor who knows how to do a breakdown and that's where he undoubtedly shines if not while he's behind the mic. He's terrific in the composing scenes too as it effortlessly flows from his fingers or while he gives relentless notes to musicians. It's a film about the preciousness of the world's most creative minds with the good and the bad that they attract. Jarring at first, it hits an ideal ending with its use of Wouldn't It Be Nice. Now we finally see Wilson older and in love. Bittersweet payoff for 50 years of waiting. Love & Mercy gives the Brian Wilson story the dramatic weight and artistic buoyancy on screen that he deserves.
8/10