Review of Love & Mercy (2015) by Joel M — 16 Sep 2015

The bio flick "Love & Mercy" tells the tale of the professional and personal life of Brian Wilson, one of the key members of the infamous Beach Boys band. OK, so let's do the math here, I do include an enormous amount of puns in my movie reviews, and I am reviewing a movie about a Beach Boys member. So you know what that means, will have "puns, puns, puns" til my readers start to run away!!! Anyways, Wilson's challenging dilemma was no laughing matter. He battled schizophrenia throughout most of his adult life. Director Bill Pohlad marveled in presenting a double-sided chronology to Wilson's story; first as a young successful songwriter/producer/member of the Beach Boys who thought that "wouldn't it be nice" for the band to transform into a more avant- garde sound which dismayed his Wilson brother bandmates, but most notably his cousin bandmate Mike Love. Paul Dano's performance as the younger Dano was right on key. On the flip side, John Cusack magnificently plays the older Wilson who was already diagnosed with full-fledged schizophrenia and is profoundly controlled by his psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Landy. When the older Wilson meets Melinda Ledbetter, a former model turned car saleswoman, it simply leads to better times for the mentally ailing Wilson; but not without a control fight from Team Landy; let's just say Dr. Landy was a real kokomierda. "Love & Mercy" is an excellent piece, but not a perfect film; the screenplay at times was bit disoriented and repetitious. But from the instant, I picked up "good vibrations" from the supersonic performances from John Cusack and Paul Dano as the Brians, and ledbeter not forget Elizabeth Banks rousing work as Melinda. "God only knows" how people can take so many puns in movie reviews, but "don't worry baby" because I'm just about done here. "Love & Mercy" is worth riding its cinematic wave; in other words, it's beaching, I mean bitching! *.

**** Excellent.