Delayed Reaction: Love & Mercy

The Pitch: Brian Wilson's life as told by two actors who don't look very similar.

The musical biopic is one of the more formulaic structures in film. Really, it's biopics in general that are stale, but there seem to be more made about musicians than other careers (Which fits my theory that most screenwriters wish they were musicians). What's been interesting is seeing how films have tried to break the formula in the last decade. The same month in 2007 that Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story cleverly skewered the tropes set so effectively by films like Ray and Walk the Line, I'm Not There attempted to find a new way to do things by having six different actors (including Cate Blanchett) play Bob Dylan in a movie about him. The latest trend is to focus on a single period of the musician's life or career. That's what Miles Ahead does, for example. Love & Mercy splits the difference by following two periods of Brian Wilson's life. There's the early period, using Paul Dano to play Wilson, that's about his creative highs of making Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations" then failing to complete Sunshine. The latter part has John Cusack playing Wilson at his lowest point of mental health. The Dano years follow the more familiar biopic beats, but it's also the part I preferred. The film does such a good job of showing the studio sessions and how Wilson is a genius with that stuff. It really is as simple as "I like the music". So, when I hear the early stages of "Good Vibrations" coming together, that sucked me in. The Cusack years are a little less engaging because it's not about Wilson's creative years. I'm always happy to see Elizabeth Banks show up, but that was offset by Paul Giamatti in a broadly skeevy role that rubbed me the wrong way beyond what's intended by the film. It's a credit to Dano and Cusack's performances that, while actually watching the movie, it never bothered me that they don't look anything like a before and after of the same person.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend