Review of Love & Mercy (2015) by Erik J — 21 Jun 2015

Love and Mercy is the latest in a series of biopics that have been coming out lately. I wouldn't normally consider this to be my genre, but I give them credit for making a convincing trailer. I went in hoping for a movie about the creative process and a thoughtful look into the mind that creates great music. I was not disappointed...sort of. In a way, it did it all too well. Sometimes the overly romanticized creative process is actually an unpleasant hellscape, full of delusions, hearing voices, self doubt - in other words, sometimes creating something means you must experience the opposite of that thing. Instead of feeling invigorated as I hoped, I was given a sharp dose of reality. One other thing to go along with that, apparently Brian Williams was into drugs for a period of his life and suffered from some schizophrenia. In some parts, I found myself having a hard time figuring out what they're going for, but so did Brian Wilson as he lived through it. So I can't fault them completely for being occasionally incoherent.

All that being said, the movie is very well made with a lot of very touching scenes. The actors are well placed, especially the two leads. (though I must admit that I was more intrigued when the Paul Dano side of the story came up on the screen.) The story is good, and I love movies like this that dig deep into how the human mind works. There's a large portion of movie goers that would find the movie too slow and many scenes unnecessary and nonsensical. Fortunately for this movie, I doubt many of those people would ever find themselves watching it anyway.

My Grade: B-.