Review of Love & Mercy (2015) by Ydnar4 — 05 Sep 2015

I had very little insight on Brian Wilson before watching this film. I was aware of some of the significant Beach Boys songs but other than that I had no information on his life or his struggles. The first thing this film does right is break the film into two parallel storylines and casts two actors for the same man. I think it is cool that we can see wo actors play Wilson because Brian Wilson was a completely different man after being put under the supervision of Dr. Eugene Landy. Paul Dano, who is so good at playing characters the audience is forced to hate in movies like 12 Years a Slave and Prisoners, but Dano is a likeable actor in this movie and he does an excellent job and I would say that he outplayed John Cusack although his performance is no slouch either.

The real noteworthy performance in this film actually comes from Paul Giamatti who has been an excellent supporting cast member in several great films already this year. This is the best performance I have seen from him. I could buy the wig he wore and he plays the greedy and downright awful person Eugene Landy so well that its impossible not to notice.

The one big complaint I have about this movie is that it assumes that you know too much. This movie is for Beach Boy fans if you ask me. I felt that a lot was left to my imagination rather than displaying it in the film and if that meant the film needed to be extended I would be fine with that.