This is the best music biopic since Immortal Beloved

Rating: 10/10 (7 June 2015)

It's almost impossible to portray the work involved in making a great song in a movie. Love and Mercy accomplishes that and so much more. It is an emotional juggernaut that every boomer should enjoy. Dano and Cusack nail the early and later Wilson. Elizabeth Banks holds the whole thing together with the "flash forwards" featuring her pitch-perfect performance.
The typical music biopic is a formula of rising star gets drugged out, falls from the pinnacle and either dies an early death or maybe makes a comeback after getting sober. This movie explains WHY all those things happened to Brian Wilson and does it with an unblinking eye. It treats the audience like they have brains.
This movie is not for the faint-hearted. It tells it like it was. Some very sad episodes, but an ending worth waiting for. Go see it.