A Beautiful Mind - Dano & Cusack make a DynamicDuo as Brian Wilson; Banks' best work to date

Rating: 9/10 (28 June 2015)

LOVE & MERCY (2015) ***1/2 John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti, Dee Wallace, Jake Abel, Joanna Going, Kenny Wormald, Brett Davern, Erin Drake, Graham Rogers, Jonathan Slavin, Nick Gehlfuss, Bill Camp. Cusack and Dano give first-rate performances as Beach Boys' founder and musical genius Brian Wilson (the former as the latter in life and vice verse) whose struggles with mental illness, a bullying father, outdoing each new album as a work of art and drug abuse follows the ups-and-downs of a brilliant career with a nightmarish personal life. Based on Wilson's account of his autobiography the screenplay by Oren Moverman and Michael A. Lerner ping-pong in flashbacks with Dano's Wilson facing industry scrutiny and personality feuds with band member and cousin Mike Love while in the throes of early onset mental breakdowns while Cusack's Wilson is nearly a shell of his former self no thanks to the Svengalian psychotherapist Dr. Eugene Landy (a reptilian turn by Giamatti) while romancing his second wife Melinda Ledbetter (an empathetic heroic Banks) who does everything within her powers to save him from himself and Landy's nefarious hold on him. Graced with some wonderful moments of creativity with Dano immersing himself uncannily as the mastermind Wilson making beautiful music and Cusack's gentle and terrified Wilson taking one step forward, three steps back for a comeback. Director Bill Pohland's sophomore effort (literally his second film as helmsman after a prolific producing career) manages to keep things graceful and fluid; not an easy chore in depicting such a fragile subject matter.