Love and Mercy (2015)
PG-13
4.0 Stars out of 5
Director Bill PohladWriter Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner
Cinematography Robert D. Yeoman
Music Atticus Ross
Elizabeth Banks Melinda Ledbetter
Paul Dano Brian Wilson (1960’s)
John Cusak Brian Wilson (1980’s)
Paul Giamatti Dr. Gene Landy
Graham Rogers Al Jardine
Kenny Wormald Dennis Wilson
Jake Abel Mike Love
Brett Davern Carl Wilson
Erin Darke Marilyn Wilson
Bill Camp Murry Wilson
The standard bio-pic for musicians is such a tried and true
formula: happy obscurity, struggle into early success, rising success/initial
drug and/or alcohol abuse, severe substance abuse/faltering career,
intervention, relapse or two/decaying career, final redemption and minor career
recovery. It happens every time. Well not every time, “Love and Mercy” is the
exception that may prove the rule. The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson’s story as
depicted in “Love and Mercy” definitely hews to a different, not necessarily
refreshing musical career path. “Love and Mercy” is a definitely different
examination of a musician’s life, but it is also most definitely not an easy
film to watch. Painful is a much better one word description of Brian Wilson’s
musical and personal life.
Director Bill Pohlad and writers Oren Overman and Michael
Alan Lerner have written and adapted a screenplay that compares the life of
Brian Wilson in the mid-sixties (well played by Paul Dano) when his musical
genius was coming into full flower to his life in the mid-eighties (equally well
played by John Cusak) when Wilson lived under the complete control of his
psychologist, Dr. Eugene Landy (ominously played by Paul Giamatti). During the sequence
in the eighties, Brian meets a Cadillac salesperson, Melinda Ledbetter (played
by Elizabeth Banks). Cusak portrays Wilson as a very diffident, halting individual,
afraid to make any move that would meet with the disapproval of Dr. Landy. His
first meeting with Ledbetter is presented in a manner to emphasis his
helplessness. She is naturally confused but attracted to him, perhaps because of
his evident need. As they become more involved with one another, his mental problems
and subservience to Landy becoming increasingly clear. These scenes
interspersed with scenes from the sixties are squirm-inducing they are so
painful to watch. Cusak’s depictions of Wilson as little more than a husk of a
man are heart breaking.
Interleaved with the evolving relationship between Cusak and
Banks in the eighties is a second, separate evolution of Brian Wilson, this one
as a young man in the sixties. Early in the sixties scenes is a panic attack
experienced by Wilson on an airplane. It is but the beginning of a singular
path for Brian away from the Beach Boys, his two brothers (Dennis and Carl),
cousin (Mike Love) and friend (Al Jardine). Following the panic attack, Brian
asks for and receives permission to withdraw from a planned tour in Japan.
While the rest of the group is touring, Brian begins an experimental phase in
rock music that has been critiqued by music critics as singular. Brian
institutes the use of session musicians to create a “sound” that is as
instrumental (no pun intended) to the overall musical effect of the group as
the lead singer. The movie emphasizes the painstaking and driven manner in
which Brian works with various session members, leading them and pointing them
in the direction he wants and can hear in his mind; it is as if Pohlad wants
the viewing audience to imagine the inner workings of a modern composer, one
that might be on a par with any of the various musical geniuses down through
recent history. A priori, I would have thought depicting this process would be
as uninvolving as watching someone write a letter, but in fact Pohlad achieves
this film’s highest point of artistry in conveying the process of layering
various tracks of music and of getting the various musicians to achieve a kind
of perfection (to Brian’s ears) on each of those tracks.
The sixties sequence is brilliantly paired and interleaved
with the eighties sequence via some inspired film editing. In the sixties, we
watch Brian grow and achieve a kind of apotheosis in his music, even as his
life and mental stability spiral down and out of control. Paired up to the
sixties, the sine wave of his life turns positive as he slowly leaves the
mental trough that he has lived in under the control of Dr. Landy. According to
the film, Melinda’s love and concern for Brian coupled with his slow movement
away from Landy permit Brian to finally regain some independence and certainly better
medical care. The movie strongly implies much of this late in life success comes
as a result of Melinda’s intervention. A careful examination of Brian’s life
from sources other than the movie would strongly suggest the movie has greatly
simplified these two decades in Brian’s life. In fact, the movie implicitly
suggests that after the mid-sixties, Brian achieved very little for the next
two decades; a quick review of the
albums released by Brian in solo efforts, collaboration with other artists and
with the Beach Boys would clearly indicate, nothing could be further from the
truth. He remained busy right up the present day.
If unlike me you are a Beach Boys fan, you might enjoy the musical interludes where
brief renditions of their various hits and a few of their non-hits are played.
However, this is a movie about a composer, his path to the various end products
of his efforts, not so much about the musical final products. If you are
interested in watching how modern music can be created in a studio by adding
one track to another, and how musicians are asked to work through multiple
versions of a piece of music until the man driving the process is at last
satisfied, then this could be your
movie. But mostly, this is a movie about a man that is a musician that has is
life derailed by drugs and some personal mental issues that were likely
exacerbated by those drugs. There are other actors in the drama of Brian Wilson’s
life (a demanding father, a fellow member of the band that wants to go in
another musical direction, a bad doctor and a loving second wife), but to my
eyes it seemed mostly a tragedy of a life with no clear reason for the tragedy.
Was it mental illness, drugs, an abusive father, or some combination of these
and other factors? I found this to be the biggest flaw in the movie – what was
it that ailed Brian the most? In any event, if you enjoy dramas that are intricately
edited, professionally acted that depict the rise and fall of a gifted artist,
then this is definitely your movie.
One final point, besides the inspired parts of the movie
showing Brian in the studio, a second part that is substantially moving is the
end credits. As they roll, the audience is presented with a view of the actual
Brian Wilson in the early 2000’s playing his music to an audience. One can
easily see that still extant mental struggle of this now not-so-young man as he
stares out into his audience, but even more clearly evident in his face is what
seems to be some new found joy in playing his music for his fans. The song he
plays: Love and Mercy.
