First things first, I am a massive Beach Boys fan. The annoying type of fan who will quite happily sit and listen to anything and everything they made between 1966 - 1977. I’m also the type of fan that has read the numerous dodgy biographies on the band, including Brian Wilson’s own (and apparently ghost written by Eugene Landy) bitter and twisted autobiography Wouldn’t It Be Nice? I’ve sat through tedious made-for-television films about the band. None of these things really got behind the music to help me wrap my head around just why Brian Wilson was capable of creating such timeless and beautiful music, songs that many of which have become twentieth century pop standards.
Much like Mike Love’s urge to pull down his pants, spread his arse cheeks and defecate long and hard upon the legacy of the Beach Boys at any opportunity he gets, these previous bland, impotent attempts to tell the story of the band and the music have only ever done the Beach Boys a disservice; they would make you think it was all Fun Fun Fun, California Girls, Pet Sounds, and then Brian Wilson gets fat and stays in bed for a very long time.
As we know, music biogs, especially the filmed versions, never really capture the magic, that special something we hear on our favourite songs. But how can they? To even expect them to would be foolish. Those moments when musicians are writing and recording aren’t planned or pre-destined. They are a combination of luck, happenstance, and risk, that through sheer chance just happened to have turned out they way they did and fortunately for us have been captured on tape.
So how would Love and Mercy fare?
This film is not a story of the Beach Boys, or even a straightforward biography of Brian Wilson. Instead, Love and Mercy focuses on two key periods in Brian’s life - the mid-to-late sixties when he was crafting the masterpieces Pet Sounds and Smile; and the late eighties when he was burnt out and under the 24 hour watch of the infamous Dr. Eugene Landy.
Love and Mercy is very much about Brian Wilson’s key relationships within those periods and how they affected him, shaped him and drove him to do what he did. The sixties scenes focus on his relationship with his band, especially the belligerent Mike Love, his abusive father (more of which later), and his relationship with his music and the studio. While the eighties are very about the dominating Eugene Landy, who controls every aspect of his life from where he can live to when he can eat, and meeting his now wife, Melinda Leadbetter, a former model and car salesperson who helps him eventually get his shit together.
After feeling tense about how the film would play out, it was only a few minutes in when I felt myself sighing with relief. The Director, Bill Pohlad, and his writing team are obviously enthralled to the Beach Boys’ music. There are some lovingly crafted scenes of the early Beach Boys playing live, re-creations of photoshoots, and shots of the band in the studio. It really captures the excitement of those early Beach Boys surf pop hits. It also acts as a reminder that it must have been fun being a Beach Boy for a little while before the darkness set in - the first glimpse of which we get is when Brian Wilson has a panic attack on a plane going to a gig and decides to opt out of touring to concentrate on writing in the studio.
The Beach Boys music has also been given a bit of The Beatles Love treatment on the soundtrack. Snippets of Brian’s vocals have been stretched, looped, and wash around like ocean waves crashing on the shore. While the the scenes of watching Brian working in the studio creating the masterpiece Pet Sounds with the legendary Wrecking Crew have been painstakingly constructed and bring to life the magic and wonder that exists in that music. This is also where we see Brian truly coming alive and when he is at his most animated.
The filmmakers have clearly done their homework and the attention to detail is immaculate. There are little nods to things going on at the time that are never made explicit, they just sit there to frame the period and place: The Beatles rivalry is touched upon; those two other woman Brian’s wife is with at the pool part are Marilyn Wilson’s bandmates from sixties girl group The Honeys; lovely props to Carol Kaye and Hal Blaine in the Wrecking Crew scenes; and of course we get a glimpse of the piano in the sandbox. The list is endless and I could watch the film again just to try and spot more of these. It’s telling that there is less of this sort of stuff in the scenes set in the eighties, perhaps as if to emphasise how little was going on in Brian Wilson’s life at that time, or to be exact, how much of it had been taken away by Dr Eugene Landy.
Paul Dano as the young Brian has the right amount of chub and fringe going on, and perfectly captures the youthful Brian in his element when creating music, struggling with the onset of his mental health issues, and fighting with his father and Mike Love. John Cusack may have not put as much effort in to looking like the middle-aged Brian Wilson, but he portrays a broken, pilled-up Brian with great care and dignity, and his mannerisms are spot on and will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has seen any recent Brian Wilson footage - basically anything from the last thirty years or so.
If this film is about the various relationships in Brian’s life, the one with his father looms large through the sixties and the eighties. Brian’s father was a bully, regularly hitting Brian, which eventually led to near-deafness in his right ear, and becoming jealous of his success, eventually selling-off the Beach Boy’s publishing rights for next to nothing. The scene where Brian is sat at his piano showing his father as song that he has just written - God Only Knows - is utterly heartbreaking. Brian, always looking to his father for reassurance, never ever got it. When one patriarchal bully is replaced by another, Eugene Landy, you can’t help but feel sorry for the state Brian Wilson has found himself in. A prisoner in his own world. This is where I should mention that Paul Giamatti excels in his role as Dr Eugene Landy. Clearly taking great relish camping it up as the evil villain of the film. He has the insane stare and grin of a true psychopath.
Shout out to the filmmakers for showing how poisonous and toxic Mike Love really is too. It’s quite ironic that he should have such a surname. While Dennis and Carl support Brian’s pursuit of the music that he just has to get out of his head. Upon first hearing the tracks that would make up Pet Sounds that Brian has painstakingly put together, Mike Love dismisses it out of hand as not sounding like the old stuff, and is generally a smug twat throughout.
This film isn’t perfect by any means. The role of Melinda Leadbetter, played by Elizabeth Banks, in helping Brian escape the grips of Eugene Landy, and the rather trite sentimental ending that threatens to ruin the sterling work of the previous two hours, feel like they were written by the Wilson estate who had a hand in getting the film made. There’s also some heavy hand exposition, but then again not every watching Love and Mercy will be aware of the Beach Boys history or know who Carol Kaye is.
Aside from fans of the Beach Boys, it’s hard to know who this film is for. I’m not sure Brian Wilson has the universal appeal of someone like Ray Charles. Saying that, Love and Mercy perfectly captures the torment, struggles and genius of Brian Wilson. It is a touching tribute to the man and his music.
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