Review of Love & Mercy (2015) by Connor C — 18 Aug 2015

At the helm of this unique biopic is Paul Dano, who deserves a round of applause for his role as singer/songwriter/musician and co-founder of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson. Dano excels in the film at playing against type and turning in an awe-inspiring, stellar and heart-breaking performance as Brian Wilson in the hay day of the Beach Boys just before they released the equally against type Pet Sounds album.

Above all, Dano owns the movie with his charismatic, sweet-natured and quirky take on a troubled musical icon. Fast-forwarding around twenty years later in the late 1980s, Dano steps out and lets the impeccable John Cusack step in, who plays the man with a distantly dreamy and crushing desperation for something to hold onto, with his mind now much more faded and having become a child stuck in an unwilling man's body.

Luckily, Wilson finds an anchor in his newfound love, Melinda Ledbetter, played with a seeming ease and motherly quality by Elizabeth Banks. However, the dividing factor between them comes in the form of Dr.

Eugene Landy, the maniacal, insatiable tormenter of the broken shell that is still only just Brian Wilson. Paul Giamatti, who plays Landy, is remarkable and many times overwhelming in every second he is on screen, taking advantage of every moment to convey the doctor's deranged obsession with Wilson's every move and the move of every one that tries to stop him.

Some of the best scenes are in the studio during the creation of the quintessential songs in Pet Sounds, involving the viewer with the music through the breaking down and assembling of each sound and rhythmic beat.

The studio is also the room where much of the 1960s Brian Wilson seems to slip ever closer towards the madness we know he did slip into, but meanwhile the music is phenomenal and truly gives off good vibrations.