Director: Bill Pohlad
Date: 3 May 2020
jamesintexas Rating: **1/2
Love and Mercy has beautiful moments, most of them the exuberant creation of the magical music of Brian Wilson's album "Pet Sounds," and Paul Dano does a terrific job showing Brian getting carried away with the songs in his head that translate into unforgettable and complete unique sounds. The film is at its best during these sequences, sometimes with Pohlad panning the camera across the entire room to show what Brian and all of the different musicians are doing at one particular moment. The musicians themselves play up the liveliness of Wilson's vision. There is an energy and a crescendo of creation in these scenes that the rest of the movie just can't live up to as it aims to upend the traditional musician biopic format by splitting the role into two: Paul Dano for the 1960's era Wilson and John Cusack for the late 90's era Wilson. To do something like this, instead of staying with one actor and using make-up, has to be done for a compelling reason, as does cutting back and forth from one story to the other as often as Love and Mercy does. It is watchable for sure, as a relatively ignorant Beach Boys and Brian Wilson listener, someone who appreciates the hit songs but does not know the full story. However, I just don't think that the film is greater than the sum of its parts here, and I left longing for the singular film that would have gone deeper into one chapter of Brian Wilson's incredible life and allowed the actors more to do and more screen time.
The film seems to never want to delve deeper than pointing out that Brian Wilson's father was an abusive, awful man who hurt his son physically and emotionally, abuse that is carried forward like a relay race baton by Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti, reprising a version of his slimy manger from Straight Outta Compton), a pseudo-doctor/manager in Brian's later years who kept him heavily medicated and tightly controlled. I had so many questions about Brian's estrangement from his brothers and how things got to this dire point. The film hints at such conflict but sidesteps the details, opting to leave it mysterious. The film focuses on Brian's casual encounter with car saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) which sparks into a loving, genuine relationship; she is generally unaware of who he is and what parameters his life consists of now as he behaves a bit awkwardly and has a bodyguard follow him around. Melinda (and the audience) gradually uncovers the level of control that Landy has over all aspects of Brian's life. Cross cut with the younger Brian fighting with his brothers and bandmates (and father), Love and Mercy is generally stronger at depicting Brian's eclectic music-making and painful struggles with hearing voices and mental illness in the earlier sections of the film. The layering of the sounds and songs is quite brilliantly done by the film, even though it leaves major characters and questions unexplored and unanswered, like Brian's first wife, for instance, who is given next to nothing to do, sadly. John Cusack is an actor that I like, and here he is forced to mostly play only a few notes: sluggish, spaced-out, drugged out, and fighting to swim to the surface. Cusack is a capable actor, and even with the very good Banks at his side, he fails to capture my attention the way that Dano does.
In a depiction of a man putting himself out into the world again, the film modestly succeeds with showing Wilson's tentative steps with Melinda's love and guidance. Undeniably, Wilson's music is so iconic and special, and treated as such here, and this film made me seek out "Pet Sounds" on Spotify to listen to and enjoy, as well as the song "Love and Mercy" which was new to me too and quite great. Ultimately, I do not fully recommend this film, but it has its moments, and I can only marvel at the artistry and strength it took Brian Wilson to create such art in such conditions. The world is a better place because of his iconic music and sounds. He deserves a stronger movie.
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