Such a frustrating disappointment

Just what I expected

Absolutely Brilliant!

A Major Disappointment

I enjoyed the early Beach Boys parts of the story and I wished they had been longer. Paul Dano made a great job as the young Brian Wilson and those parts of the movie were very good. I also wished there had been more of their early music and the group beginnings and rise to fame, maybe exploring better the conflict relationship with their father. The later parts of the story were not of the same level. John Cusak was a poor casting for the role of the older Brian WIlson. There is nothing likable about his character and it was difficult to see what made his future wife get attracted to him, other than his bank account. It is the victors who write the history books, or in this case they are the ones that will sell the rights to the movie and control how some character, including themselves will be depicted. Maybe I am totally wrong about this, I have no way to know, but the important thing is that this is the way the movie made me feel while watching it, that it was a struggle about who would control Brian Wilson fortunes.

Fame and normalcy simply do not go hand in hand. According to biopics on the lives of famous music artists, this goes beyond the ability to live a normal life where you can go out without being recognized and where privacy is a virtual impossibility. Beyond this...many have demons in their lives that haunt them. We see this in movies such as "Ray" (2004) (Ray Charles biopic), "Walk the Line" (2005) (Johnny Cash biopic) and "What's Love Got to Do With It" (1993) (Tina Turner biopic). "Love & Desire" shows us that even the happy-go-lucky group The Beach Boys were pretty warped. On the surface the Beach Boys are this surf-pop group with fun summer songs, who guest starred on "Full House" (1988) in their later years. Little did we know that they had their fair share of turmoil. Control issues, artistic differences and even paranoid schizophrenia did not escape The Beach Boys. Biopics are tricky as far as movies go because the plot consists of the events of a person's life, so a finite beginning, middle and end is tricky to create. This movie did well in artistically capturing the craziness of the lives of The Beach Boys. One negative note in the cinematography is that certain scenes were shot as if someone was spying on the speakers with very shaky camera. It's a technique I'm seeing more and more in films and I can't stand it. Just keep the camera still! Overall, this movie was an interesting look at The Beach Boys, but a rather typical biopic.

Love & Mercy is the story of Brian Wilson, the creative heart and also the troubled mind of The Beach Boys and it takes place in two time streams.Paul Dano plays the younger Brian who slowly descents into madness (with the help of drugs and booze not quiet touched in the film) as he moves away from the popular west coast surf sound and into the more experimental Pet Sounds album. This portion of the film was the best as we see the recording and singing process and his interaction with the rest of the band and his stern, overpowering father who sold away his publishing rights.John Cusack is the older Wilson, his scenes are set in the 1980s when he is under the care and medications of his overpowering, manipulative and Svengali like psychotherapist, Dr Landy (Paul Giamatti.) Love, understanding and eventual escape from the clutches of Dr Landy comes from (Melinda Ledbetter) Elizabeth Banks, a Cadillac car saleswoman who went on to become his wife.The film was just too disjointed and uneven with the Cusack segments being weaker, not helped that his performance was overshadowed by Banks and Giamatti who with his wig looked scarily similar to Phil Spector.

I met Brian Wilson several times. All four stars go to Paul Dano, who tries and does well as young Brian, but no one can suspend disbelief so far as to accept John Cusack, a great actor in the right situation, as Brian anybody. It's a ridiculous stretch to begin with. Brian himself was able to sit through this film, though how, I cannot imagine. Still, Brian dances to his own imagination, so I wouldn't presume to determine his impression of it. Nothing wrong with the film's values, only that the flip-flop age approach, Dano as young Brian, Cusack as older Brian, simply doesn't work, because even a fine actor like Cusack cannot achieve any believable resemblance to Wilson or his persona - he is just the wrong choice to pull off such a huge conceit. Best turn to "Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" (1995) and let the actual man do his job. Director Bill Pohlad is no slouch, but next time, perhaps a bit more looking before taking a leap the size of this one.