This is a somewhat difficult movie for me.  I’m a fan of the Beach Boys — they were my first concert experience back in 1977 at the old Chicago Stadium — yet I knew very little about Brian Wilson’s psychological issues.  I’ve also never considered him a musical genius, as the movie positions him.  It is very strange to see two actors — Paul Dano and John Cusack — playing the same role, particularly when they don’t really resemble one another.  And it is not easy for me to accept that Wilson would have allowed Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) to control every aspect of his life.

That being said, there is much of merit in Bill Pohlad’s time-shifting exploration of Brian Wilson’s life and times.  Both Dano and Cusack are quite good as Wilson at different stages of his life, though I still have trouble putting them together as one. The real surprise for me, however, is Elizabeth Banks as Melinda Ledbetter, a car salesperson who falls for Wilson, eventually doing whatever she can to break him free of the clutches of the nefarious doctor.  Ledbetter is the lynchpin to the plot, the outsider who has the perspective to see things as they really are, and Banks fully inhabits the role.  She has never been better.

Pohlad’s film presents two periods of Wilson’s life: the Beach Boys’ heyday, when Wilson began to withdraw from the group to concentrate on writing and producing (he hated to fly and didn’t want to tour), and the period under Dr. Landy’s protective care.  Everything in between is left to our imaginations (how did creative Paul Dano evolve into reclusive John Cusack?) and the skill of the actors to fill in the blanks. The film is a rescue mission, describing how a few encounters between Ledbetter and Wilson prompts her to reach out to him in direct defiance of the doctor.

Love and Mercy (also the title of one of Wilson’s songs) is a complex, daring film that has a great deal of charm and ambition.  I wish the other Beach Boys, especially Wilson’s brothers, would have had larger roles and better characterizations, but the main focus of the film is fascinating.  I still don’t know if Brian Wilson is a genius or not, yet now I have greater insight into the creative process of writing music as well as how closely creativity borders insanity.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  5 July 2015.