Sydney Film Festival Review: Love & Mercy

John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks in Love & Mercy

Love & Mercy explores the musical genius of Brian Wilson, crosscutting between two different time periods.  The screenplay from Michael A. Lerner and Oren Moverman (I’m Not There, The Messenger, Rampart) lays down the circumstances of Wilson’s dark, controlled, and mismanaged middle-aged years during the 1980s, while continually dipping back into time to the late 1960s at the height of the popularity of The Beach Boys.  The younger Wilson (Paul Dano), bent on achieving greatness and using the resources he has at his disposal, strives to create musical art in pop songs to rival The Beatles’ reinvention of the genre.  Like a lot of incredibly talented musicians across the centuries, Wilson suffered from mental illness triggered by an abusive upbringing, as well as the desire to fulfill the constant expectations of fame.  As we watch the 1960s come to a dark, drug-induced close, Wilson’s demons slowly take a hold of his senses and envelop his existence, and what remains is the tattered existence of his older self (John Cusack) two decades later.  Under legal guardianship, his every move is dictated by Dr. Eugene Landy(Paul Giamatti), his legal custodian.  Landy is what Frank Booth was to Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet only a little more attuned to the law and more money-grubbing.  He heads the entourage in mostly full tirade mode, and may have once rescued Wilson from completely throwing his life away, but ultimately transferred him into another semblance of imprisonment.  Elizabeth Banks plays the love interest to the older Wilson.  

The blue print for the film is intriguing, and gives the audience an insight into the songwriting skills of Wilson that were both a gift, and a curse.  The choice to slice the two parts of Wilson’s life and portray them simultaneously is convenient, but not all that arbitrary.  Landy is presented somewhat subtlety, somewhat not, with some physical likeness to Wilson’s father and the film imbues the captor with some poetic sense.  The performances from the four leads are strong.  Banks captures a lovely sweetness in her Melinda, and Giamatti, despite his rather absurd wig, restrains his bigger moments with a character that is essentially a one-dimensional villain.  Dano and Cusack bear a surprisingly decent resemblance to one another, and deliver fine work.  Dano uncovers a looseness to his normally introverted and subdued tendencies, and Cusack, though prone to some tics, continues to push himself a little harder in his role choices the last couple of years.  Initially, lip-synching is utilized to dubious effect, but eventually Dano actually convincingly sings and plays the piano without falling that short  of the real thing.  Also good is Jake Abel as Wilson’s skeptical cousin and bandmate Mike Love.  

The production and costume design, as well as the camerawork create a pleasing, believable verisimilitude between the two vastly contrasting time periods.  As well, Robert D. Yeoman (The Grand Budapest Hotel) captures an intentionally flat, but pretty depiction of Los Angeles full of sunsets, blue skies, and beach lacking much of a pulse.  The more substantial moments are rendered in the recording studio.  There’s a spine tingling familiar, but fresh illustration of Wilson realizing the full and very precise potential of “God Only Knows,” as he pulls out every last note and moment from his brain through the conduit of a full orchestra.  There’s also simple gestures placed nicely like a 360-degree shot, and a restaurant scene framing a mirrored image of the older Wilson and Melinda with a bit of a melancholic gaze.  

In his second feature in twenty-four years, director Bill Pohlad presents the chaos in Wilson’s mind through montage, as well as toying around with the relationship between audio and visual.  Some attempts feel abrupt, others too pronounced, while others delicately support the themes of the film, namely that the songs that came out of Wilson’s head were often beautiful demons, which he lovingly endeavored to exorcise from his soul.  The dialogue can be a bit too obvious and canned at times, as the characters will often spell out at what point The Beach Boys were at during their fame.  Some of the more juvenile exchanges are off-putting, but then make sense in retrospect as Wilson was this premium example of prodigious arrested development, a socially awkward and shy man stunted by proper guidance.  The script can be a little blunt, and sacrifices certain elements to the demands of running length and the general concept of the movie (i.e. the period of time that passes between the two main storylines), and, consequently, the climax feels rushed an inauthentic (the maid element feels remotely cliche).  However, the overall experience was moving and educational for those with a passing interest in the subject matter.  Performance, as well as rehearsal footage plays over the end credits, making this film a very fond tribute.