Love and Mercy * * * * *

Love and Mercy: What a beautiful title. It’s taken from the song of the same name by Brian Wilson.
In the mid sixties the real game changers were The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys. What a crap name! They looked crap too with their stripe shirts and neat hairdos.  But they did have a unique sound with very catchy pop songs that became the genesis of West Coast rock. Then came  Pet Sounds. It had an album sleeve  that was worse than the image they were already burdened with. Fortunately most people got past the sleeve to find a thirteen song recording that was as revolutionary as the Beatles latest album. Matching Rubber Soul had been Wilson’s motivation all along - and with Pet Sounds he did it. Then, a few months later he trumped everything on that album with Good Vibrations. One of the greatest singles of all time.
Prior to Pet Sounds, when Brian announced he wasn’t touring with the band anymore people guessed that things weren’t going too well in the Beach Boys camp.  But those were the days before internet and multiple TV stations, so it was all just rumors from magazines.  This superb film shows us just how bad things were. But more importantly it shows how great was the creative mind of Brian Wilson. 
I can think of few films that have portrayed an artist so intimately.  It is as if the film won’t let us stay objective and look at him like a case study.  It wants us inside his head.   It is so intimate at times you want to call out.  “Brian, it’s okay.  You’re okay”.
If I had one complaint about this film it is that it finished all too soon.  Directors that push it past two hours are frequently unjustifiable, feeding their ego more than their audience. But if this had gone on for another hour to show us Wilson resurrecting and performing his masterpiece Smile with the support of faithful friends and his extraordinary wife Melinda I’d have welcomed it.   
Brian Wilson is played by two fine actors: Paul Dano as the younger Wilson (he put on pounds for the role) and John Cusack as the older Wilson: both are utterly convincing, not just with their physicality but their projection of Wilson’s genius, pain and vulnerability.  The discredited monster psychiatrist Eugene Landy who appeared to do so much good - but was actually doing more harm to Wilson - is frighteningly played by  Paul Giamatti.
Many of the scenes of the younger Wilson working in the studio are recreated and then shot like a fly on the wall documentary with hand-held cameras and footage which is artificially aged through graining. So you feel as though you are viewing lost footage which has been found again. We watch the younger Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) work with backing musicians and we get inklings of what he is hearing his head - a cacophony of music and noise that both inspires him and drives him insane.
Most of the scenes of the older Wilson are shot  conventionally on set, but it flows effortlessly between the two styles and time periods. I cannot think of one scene - indeed one line - in this film that did not contribute to build this superb portrait.
There are scenes which are seemingly so simple and yet are rich with quiet symbolism.  In the first meeting of Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) and Brian in a car showroom, he sits in a Cadillac with her. "Close the doors" he asks, cocooning them in a world that they can share and in which he can freely communicate.  She is a complete stranger, but he knows immediately he can trust her.  
In another they wear nothing but sheets - like spirits that don’t want to be seen as Wilson’s “guardians”, appointed by Landy, approach, whilst Melinda desperately implores Brian to be himself, to be strong again.
And another scene where the younger Brian Wilson is begging the rest of the band from the other side of the swimming pool to "come across the water" and talk to him as they despair of the type of songs he wants to write.

The cruelty Brian and his brothers endured at the hands of his father is no secret.  It was both psychological and physical. It is an important part of his development (and self destruction), but who wants to witness that?  It is conveyed to us effectively but without heavy handedness. There is a scene of his father speaking to him, belittling a piece he was writing, bitterly undermining him - it says it all.  And for the physical abuse, a simple but frightening explanation by Wilson (played by Cusack) as to how a normal father might chastise a child and how his father did it.

The crazy situations we have all read about are shown without fanfare and they even make sense to us as we begin to share Brian’s way of looking at things: The tepee in the living room, the grand piano in the sand box, his communication with dogs, the freakout on the plane.  
Bill Pohlad is known as a producer (12 years a slave, Into The Wild).  I believe this is the first time he has directed. After this I hope he gets out of the production office and on to the set a lot more.
Love and Mercy is probably the finest biopic I have seen.  It is so raw in it’s telling and yet so respectful of its subject matter. It’s incredibly moving, especially the scenes between him and Melinda who became not only his wife but his saviour. Playing Melinda, Elizabeth Banks shows every reason why Wilson loves and trusts her; but she also shows what she sees in him despite his problems - a beautiful spirit in a greatly damaged man.
I’ll assume that everyone in the world knows a Beach Boys song or two; but even if you’re not aware of the band members and Brian Wilson, go see this and enjoy a flawless telling of a an amazing composers life.
Love and Mercy is a beautiful, magnificent film. I’m glad it has been made so perfectly. God only knows where we’d be without it.

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