Love & Mercy (2015)

[Frayed Knot]

Love & Mercy, and Genius & Madness, and Despair & Redemption

Paul Dano and John Cusack are Brian Wilson
with Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti

[MFS62]

If you grew up on the streets of an East Coast city, you really didn't care about beach boys, hot cars or surfing. Our music tastes were folksier, grittier and/ or more soulful.
So to us, the Beach Boys were like science fiction - you'd read about that stuff, but would never experience it. So I paid no mind to their music and had no interest in their (pre-social media ) personal lives.

Later in life, I began to listen to their music and really appreciate their harmonies and rhythms. But still not enough for me to want to see a movie about their personal lives or struggles.
It might be fun for others, but I'll pass.

Later

[Edgy MD]

I thought we already had a L&M thread.

Anywhich, I thought it looked good and all, but was two different movies that were sort of forced into one. The young Beach Boys in the California modern sixties were cool to look at. But the uglier eighties was where the real story was. And only barely. Older Brian Wilson, apart from being a bigger (and better coiffed) guy than John Cusack, wasn't just weird. He was messed up — his face partially paralyzed, his vocal chords barely functional, his eyes unable to fix on one point for more than a beat or two.

The weird part about the sixties stuff is that I found myself agreeing with Mike F. Love.

Why does Paul Dran-O always end up playing wounded geniuses?

I voted 3 1/2 but meant to vote 2 1/2.

[Frayed Knot]

Well of course the two movies into one concept was quite intentional, one which I thought worked quite well. In fact there's talk that the filmmakers originally contemplated three periods with P.S. Hoffman targeted to portray bloated Brian of the pre-Landy era.

For those who haven't seen it, this is not your traditional bio-pic as it deals with Wilson's life in two short periods: the 'Pet Sounds' to 'Smile' era ('66-'67) with Dano looking quite like Brian of that day; then as portrayed by Cusack in the mid/late-80s as he's back from his obese, drug-addled days but under the control of controversial physiatrist/guru Eugene Landy (Giamatti). The movie liberally bounces back and forth between the two as Brian's creative genius takes him away from the traditional 'Beach Boys' sound but also towards paranoia in the earlier era, and then the slow process of him breaking the bonds tying him to Landy after meeting the woman who would go on to be his second wife (Banks).
Good performances all around, particularly from Dano.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I felt it tried to cover too much in one movie. There's the obvious connection between Murry and Eugene both using Brian to fulfill their own hunger for stardom, but i felt like we didn't know enough about how Landy gained control. The whole BBs story should be a HBO style weekly drama and run for like 10 seasons.

[Edgy MD]

Agreed.