Review of Love & Mercy (2015) by Amanda C — 25 Jul 2015

Biopics are notoriously difficult to get right, an entier life is just too difficult to condense into a reasonable viewing length. This is exacerbated by the fact that filmmakers seem to feel a need to not leave anything out.

This leads to bloated and overlong films that are more often than not, not particularly interesting. Love & Mercy manages to avoid this trap by focusing on two points of Brian Wilson's life: while making the iconic Pet Sounds and the period much later in his life while he was suffer in from mental illness.

The two moments are intercut and play off of each other beautifully. The choice of casting two different actors in the role of Brian Wilson is an unusual, but effective one. John Cusack hasn't made anything this good in decades and Paul Dano is as fabulous as he ever is.

The two performances give two very different feels to Wilson, which are none the less very similar. Dano has a manic frenzy as he works towards creating what he believes will be his crowning achievement, only to see everything he has taken away.

Cusack counters this with a sweet, defeated charm that breaks into manic rage after years of being told he's washed up and crazy. The result is an intimate portrait into the mind of an artistic genius.