Review of Love & Mercy (2015) by Indi V — 10 Dec 2015

It's really well done, especially since it has a rather unique framing device.

The film is split in two intertwining halves. In one half, a young Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) struggles to create music for the Beach Boys. In the second half, a now older Brian Wilson (John Cusack) is dealing with a few demons, both physical and mental as a lover (Elizabeth Banks) helps him over come them.

Let's take them one half at a time, starting with Dano. He is absolutely incredible as the young Brian Wilson. Watching him struggle with creating news songs has Dano running through many emotions: frustration, the looming sense of failure, disappointing his family (especially since they're his bandmates). Dano nails every single one of them. The scene where he comes up with the melody for Good Vibrations is particularly noteworthy as it's the only time Dano asks someone else to help him write a song. This is absolutely wonderful work.

John Cusack doesn't quite reach the same highs as Dano does, but he does do a very respectable job. He makes his portrayal of schizophrenia believable. His romantic scenes with Elizabeth Banks have that right sort of awkward charming you'd expect from someone with a few ants shy of a picnic. This is a good performance by Cusack. He's just not really given as much opportunity to reach the same heights Dano is. Elizabeth Banks is really good, too. She is a bit of the standard "concerned girlfriend/wife", though.

The film does leave a question or two unanswered. Dano's descent into his mental issues is well documented, but his drug addiction feels a tad glossed over. It is a little difficult to see how Dano's problems come back to bite Cusack. Mostly because it feels like we went from point A to F while skipping everything in between. However, Cusack's and especially Dano's performances are so good, that they nearly overcome this issue.