Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy takes an insightful and compelling look at two periods in the life of the Beach Boys’ singer songwriter Brian Wilson. It focuses on Wilson’s efforts to create their greatest album – Pet Sounds – in the mid-1960s and on his gradual recovery from years of drug abuse in the 1980s.
Wilson is played as a younger man by Paul Dano, and by John Cusack in the scenes set 20 years later. The fact the actors don’t look alike was not a problem for me. In fact, it was a neat way of demonstrating Wilson’s fractured personality. It helps that both actors are fantastic in the role. The scenes of Wilson creating the unique sound of Pet Sounds in the studio were absolutely fascinating, and initially I was a little annoyed when the film cut to Cusack’s scenes. However, as it progressed, I become more and more invested in that period of his life and his struggles to recover, and became equally interested in both story lines.
Criticism has been made about what has been left out of the story, but it would have needed a whole series of films to tell the complete story of Wilson’s life, and I felt that Pohlad did a terrific job in presenting these two key periods. In support of Dano and Cusack, there are good performances by Elizabeth Banks as Wilson’s 80s love interest, Bill Camp as his cold and overbearing father, and there is a hammy but fun turn by Paul Giamatti as his controlling doctor.
It goes without saying the music in the film is great but you don’t have to be a fan of that to enjoy this story.
Rating: 8 out of 10