Directed by: Bill Pohland
Written by: Oren Moverman, Michael A. Lerner
Starring: John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks
The life of reclusive Beach Boys songwriter and musician Brian Wilson, from his successes with highly-influential orchestral pop albums to his nervous breakdown and subsequent encounter with controversial therapist Dr. Eugene Landy.
Paul Dano and John Cusack both play Brian Wilson in Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy. Dano looks as much like Wilson as he can, sporting a shaggy ‘do and speaking in an innocent, spacey way, like someone fighting a battle with determined inner demons. Dano embraces the role totally, making us feel the tortured excitement that fueled Wilson’s music. He does so while hopscotching through the necessary details of Wilson’s life—struggles with his notoriously abusive father, arguments over the direction of the band, getting married and splitting up in the blink of an eye, and suffering a mental breakdown, all in about an hour’s worth of movie time—but when the scene calls for it, Dano makes us forget the doldrums of the genre with his pure energy.
While not accusing Cusack of performing any less passionately, he looks positively nothing fucking like Brian Wilson. And his scenes—though also of a trying and pivotal time in Wilson’s life—turns Love & Mercy into a pet project much like what one skeptical band mate accuses Wilson of doing when is seen making Pet Sounds. I doubt, however, history will look back as kindly to this.
Cusack embodies Wilson after his Beach Boys’ fame, over-medicated and mentally decaying under the care of his abusive doctor, Eugene Landy. Through this helpless stage of Wilson’s life, Cusack takes a backseat to his captor and his savior, not because they are more important to the action, but because it’s Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks playing them.
Banks, as Melinda, and Giamatti, as Lundy, hold the action hostage for many of their scenes together. I’m not suggesting more of Paul Dano would’ve fixed it, but at times this resembles a twisted reimagining of When Harry Met Sally. The three stars are so huge, and this part of Wilson’s life so alien to most of us, though there is an intended dramatic weight, the action slips into untenable melodrama showing neither love nor mercy for the audience.
The intent outweighs the crimes by way of a hung jury. Director Bill Pohlad noted how he wanted to avoid cramming everything about Brian Wilson’s life into two hours. But he stills crams in a lot of stuff, and the movie is still two-hours. He teamed with Oren Moverman on the screenplay, seeing as Moverman worked on Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan biopic, I’m Still There. Like that movie, Love & Mercy has Brian Wilson played by different actors, but there are six different actors that portrayed Bob Dylan, and only two for Brian Wilson. Moverman divided his efforts accordingly.
Pohlad could’ve taken a page from Paul Webb’s screenplay for Selma. Selma is about one defining moment of King’s illustrious life. It still has the cursory feel of a biopic, but the action is more fluid with the bigger picture remaining in focus. Brian Wilson, as gifted as he is, is not as widely or intimately known as Martin Luther King. So maybe a little history lesson is a good thing. But while Love & Mercy is surely cathartic for Brian and Melinda, it left me more interested in rediscovering the sounds of summer—a worthy purpose after all.
I Give Love & Mercy 5 out of 10
