Love & Mercy

Watching Love & Mercy, you have to wonder if director Bill Pohlad was not sure which part of the film's topic it wanted to look at.  The movie looks at two different points in the life of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.  Neither plot that concerns the two halves truly intersects all that much, and it kind of comes across as if the filmmakers could not make up their mind what they wanted their biopic to be about.  And yet, the movie works as a whole, thanks in large part to the performances and a script that feels different from your usual "behind the music" formula.

We get to view Brian Wilson at two different times in his life, and the film frequently cuts back and forth between both time frames and plots without warning.  In one, Brian is 24-years-old, and played by the talented Paul Dano.  Here, Brian is beginning to be tortured by personal and past demons as he begins work on what will eventually become his masterpiece, the 1966 album "Pet Sounds".  In the film's second storyline, it's the 1980s, and Brian is now played by John Cusack who, despite looking nothing like the real life Wilson, delivers a fine performance here.  In this storyline, Brian is a broken man who is under the oppressive thumb of a therapist named Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), whose methods of curing him after Brian had a self-destructive period are actually hurting him rather than helping him.  Brian's fateful meeting with a sweet woman named Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) not only gives him his first chance at love in years, but just may save his life.

It often feels like we are watching two completely different movies as the film switches back and forth between both stories.  For me, the one following the younger Wilson was the more interesting of the two, as the movie truly lets us inside his world here.  We hear the voices and sounds that Brian supposedly heard whenever he was alone and haunted him.  We also get to see some glimpses of family turmoil, mostly surrounding his estranged father (Bill Camp), who abused Brian when he was younger, and seems to enjoy rubbing his son's face in his own insecurities when he is older.  In one of the film's more painful moments, his father walks into the recording studio where Brian is working, and plays a demo tape of a band he discovered.  He rubs it in Brian's face for firing him as the Beach Boy's manager earlier in their life, and basically has come to say that he doesn't need his son or his music. 

Brian's fellow bandmates (including his brothers and a cousin) are confused and sometimes vocally against the kind of music he wants to make with the album he is working on.  One even accuses him of striking out on his own, and leaving the rest of the band behind by making his own kind of music.  Of course, "Pet Sounds" would go on to be critically praised, but it did not sell initially.  The pressures of the industry and family, as well as his own gradual descent into depression and isolation, took its toll, and leads to the older Brian Wilson that we see during the scenes with Cusack.  Dr. Landy has required that bodyguards follow and keep watch over him at all times.  He meets Melinda at a car dealer showroom where she works, and he is checking out cars.  Their first meeting leads to dinner dates, and soon Melinda is being pulled into his world.  She appreciates his honesty in talking about his troubled past, but she realizes that the methods of Dr. Landy are slowly killing him.

While this half of the film is fine and has a number of successful dramatic moments, it doesn't work quite as well as the stuff with Paul Dano, because Brian is kept at more of a distance to us here.  In the other story, Brian is essentially the narrator, and we are looking at the world and the music industry through his eyes.  In the second storyline, we are seeing the story through the point of view of Melinda, and she is not quite as interesting of a character.  Banks does a fine job with her performance, but the way Melinda has been written here comes across as being a bit sweet and bland.  There must have been so many thoughts going through her head that she was dating this famous person who was battling so many visible demons, and was going through a series of treatments that were supposed to be helping his mental state, but were instead making things worse.  There is a lot of potential for drama here, and while the film touches on it, it never quite goes as far as it could have.

Still, Love & Mercy works because the actors find a way to get us hooked.  Cusack has a certain youthful energy mixed with the sadness in his performance of the later Brian Wilson, while Dano perfectly illustrates the brilliant young energy of Brian that is slowly being gripped by a madness that he doesn't understand.  And as Dr. Landy, Paul Giamatti manages to be slimy and suspicious, but not so much so that he turns himself into a caricature.  There is a sense to his performance that maybe Landy really does believe that he is helping Brian with his methods.  Yes, he seems mostly driven by greed or control, but at the same time there is some kind of sincerity there when he reminds Melinda that he saved Brian's life when he was overweight and almost killing himself with food. 

What we have here is a movie that tries to tackle too much in a two hour running time, yet despite its flaws, it still manages to work thanks to the fact that the screenplay is really willing to at times dive deep into Brian's private world, and even his demons.  The movie feels personal and honest, even when its narrative is a bit shaky.  For what faults it does have, Love & Mercy still manages to entertain and fascinate the audience with its subject matter.

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