Love and Mercy (2014): Heroes and Villains

Love and Mercy is an intriguing and entertaining movie that covers a lot of ground. Ostensibly a biopic, the film gives us a thrilling peek into the creative process of a musical genius and simultaneously a frightful glimpse into a disintegrating mind. At the same time, it’s a tale of abuse and redemption, a love story, and an account of the ascension and decline of a storied rock band. The music ain’t bad, either. Love and Mercy had its theatrical release last June, and has just been released for home viewing (Blue-ray, dvd, streaming, etc.). I’ve seen it twice – in my local movie palace shortly after its release, and again last week at home. – I loved it both times.

Love and Mercy is the second feature directed by Bill Pohlad, the first being the unsuccessful, forgotten Old Explorers, a quarter century ago. In the interim, he’s been a successful producer, associated with such films as Brokeback Mountain (2005), Into The Wild (2007), Twelve Years A Slave (2013) and Wild (2014).  So he knows a good story when he sees one.

Brian Wilson was the architect of the Beach Boys sound, the writer of most of their songs, and the lead voice on many. Wilson wrote pop gems likeSurfer Girl, Don’t Worry Baby, I Get Around, In My Room, Help Me Rhonda, Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows, Caroline No, Heroes and Villains, and of course Good Vibrations. Like Paul McCartney, his strong suit is melody, but he is also revered for arranging those beautiful Beach Boys harmonies, and some of his lyrics are as evocative as his tunes.

Wilson was an incredible talent, no doubt about it. He was also introverted, diffident and seemingly ill-suited to the stress of constant touring and the glam pop star life. In 1965, he stopped touring with his band, preferring to focus on composing and studio work. The result was the Beach Boys classic album, Pet Sounds, released in the summer of 1966, considered one of the greatest pop albums of all time, and the megahit song Good Vibrations, released a few months later. How Brian Wilson created these masterworks is a central focus of Love and Mercy.

But in the midst of this process, Brian was beginning to fall apart.  It turns out he was bipolar, and the symptoms of his (undiagnosed) illness were becoming florid. He was obsessive, he was confused, his behavior became more and more erratic. On top of that, like many others in his generation of rock icons, he was consuming large quantities of drugs. To what extent the drugs triggered Wilson’s breakdown is unclear, but there is little question that self-medication exacerbated it. In the ensuing years, he largely dropped out of the music scene, went into and out of multiple treatment programs, spent years as a virtual recluse, split from his family, grew increasingly obese, and so forth.

Famously, Brian Wilson began treatment with radical psychologist Eugene Landy in the mid-1970s, initially for about a year and again a few years later for nearly a decade from the early 1980s until 1991.  Landy initially helped to bring Brian back from the brink, but eventually became a Svengali figure, misdiagnosing his condition, plying him with massive quantities of inappropriate medications, and managing all aspects of his life 24/7, including his financial affairs, his music projects, where he went, who he saw, what he ate, everything.  Eventually, Brian was freed from Landy’s control, got proper treatment and was able to regain control over his life - and his music.

As you’d imagine, the full story of that life is pretty damn complicated. (Whose life is not?) There’s abuse at the hands of Brian’s controlling, disapproving father, Murray; forming a band in 1961with his two brothers, his cousin and a friend; the rapid rise to stardom at age twenty with the Beach Boys’ surfing and car songs; his first marriage and the birth of his children; drug and alcohol abuse; psychological disintegration; years of oppressive control by Dr. Landy; a remarkable and transformative romance with (eventual second wife) Melinda Ledbetter (not to mention her own backstory); and Brian's eventual reemergence and resurrection.

Rather than providing us with a standard chronology of that life from childhood through old-age, as in films such as Walk the Line (2005) [about Johnny Cash] or Ray (2004) [about Ray Charles],  which typically focus on musical performances interspersed with behind the scenes vignettes from throughout the subject's life; director Bill Pohlad was after something else. Brian Wilson was not an especially dynamic performer, so filling a movie with lots of concert footage would not get at the essence of his story. Instead, Pohlad decided that the movie needed to focus on Brian's mind – his creative genius and his inner turmoil.

But how do you capture genius? Or a descent into mental illness? (And is there a connection between the two?) How do you incorporate sufficient personal and historical context to make a compelling, relatable story, a drama that engages our emotions, and provides an abiding sense of Brian Wilson's struggles and redemption? Pohlad’s solution was to focus on two key moments in Brian Wilson’s life: the period 1965-66 when Brian was creating his masterpiece and simultaneously descending into his personal hell; and the period in the late 1980s when he met Melinda and escaped the clutches of Landy with her help. The picture flips back and forth between these two times – but it’s never confusing.

For one thing, Pohlad uses two different actors to play Wilson. Paul Dano (Ruby Sparks [2012]) plays young Brian, and while not a doppelganger, is actually made up and styled to look quite a bit like him. Dano brilliantly captures the twenty-three year old’s creative exuberance, his professional perfectionism, and the dawning recognition that the music he’s hearing in his head, which he is bringing to life in the studio, really is something new and special. At the same time, he conveys Brian’s anxiety, his loneliness and sense of alienation, and his terror and confusion as his mental illness increasingly asserts itself.

John Cusack has the role of the older Brian twenty some years later – a shell of his former self, a soulful, but beaten-down child-man, a guy on a very short leash held by his therapist, manager, and   controller, Eugene Landy, Ph.D. (Paul Giamatti).  Cusack conveys Brian Wilson physically and emotionally, without looking much like him. We first meet this incarnation - referred to in the credits as “Brian Wilson-Future” - at an L.A. Cadillac dealership where he meets saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks). Although trailed by his entourage of so-called bodyguards - in reality, his keepers – Brian manages some alone time with Melinda in a vehicle, where he somewhat awkwardly connects with her and slips her a little note, before being corralled by Landy and escorted away. The note reads “lonely, scared, frightened”.  Only later does Melinda learn that this strange yet compelling man is a celebrity. As played by Cusack, future Brian has a haunted, almost brooding look. We can see that there is a person inside trying get out, but the guy is so damaged and constrained by uncertainty and overmedication that expressing himself is a Herculean struggle. Brian seems to sense, however, that Melinda is worth struggling for.

Aside from the two different actors, scenes with “Brian Wilson – Past” and “Brian Wilson – Future” are also recognizably different because of their different points of view. The story of 23-year-old Brian is seen from his point of view, inside his head so to speak. The story of middle-aged Brian is largely from Melinda's perspective, and we empathize with him through her.

It should not be surprising that sound plays an important role in a film about a musician, but the use of sound and music in Love and Mercy is truly remarkable - a primary reason that the picture works so well. For example, Pohlad and composer Atticus Ross (who, with Trent Reznor, did the music for The Social Network and The Hunger Games), are able to encapsulate the pre-1965 musical history of Brian and the Beach Boys at the very outset of the movie via brief samplings of their hits coupled with a rapid collage of images, all in about one minute. During the 1965-66 sequences in particular, the sound design makes us feel like we are eavesdropping on Brian Wilson's mind. Brian suffered from auditory hallucinations. These may have informed his musical creativity, but they were also a leading symptom of his illness. During moments when he is composing or working with studio musicians (including the renowned Wrecking Crew), we too can hear the music in his head. As he explains the sound that he is looking for to his musicians, we've already heard it - or snippets of it, at least. Sometimes Brian will insist on rehearsing a section over and over again, until it starts to seem obsessive – until we hear the finished product, that is, when it sounds just perfect.  I found this exhilarating. 

But we are also inside his head sometimes when Brian's hallucinations are freaking him out. His fear and confusion at such moments are tangible to us. For example, at a celebratory dinner party following the successful release of Good Vibrations, in which everyone is happily talking and eating, Brian stops hearing the conversation – instead, he hears only the sounds of forks and knives clinking and scraping, getting louder and louder, until he has to jump up and shout STOP! and runs out of the room.  I totally got it – I was about to do the same!

The soundscape is interesting in other ways, too. If you watch this at home, and particularly if you have any sort of home theater system, I recommend that you turn the volume up fairly high. Not only will this enhance some of the above-described effects, but it will allow you to pick up some of the background sound, which you might otherwise miss. For example, during quite a few of the 1965 sequences, such  as at the recording studio, by the pool, in Brian's living room, or wherever music is playing – the music that Brian, the band or their friends were listening to at the time could quietly be heard, on my system at least, from my rear speakers, even while the relevant conversations were taking place "in front" of me. Almost seemed like I was there.

In addition to his internal demons, Wilson had to struggle with multiple antagonists in the “outside” world. Before Dr. Landy, there was Murray Wilson (Bill Camp), an arrogant, overbearing and occasionally violent bully of a father, from whom Brian vainly sought approval or at least respect, and with whom he had a love-hate relationship not unlike that of Mozart with his Papa.  And as Brian became more and more obsessive and esoteric with his musical compositions, he provoked increasing opposition and even animosity from the other Beach Boys, especially his cousin, Mike Love (Jake Abel), who couldn’t understand the increasingly trippy and “arty” song lyrics (“What the hell does ‘sunny down snuff I’m all right’ mean?”) and resented the increasing reliance on studio musicians to the exclusion of the Beach Boys themselves.

While the 1965 sequences are about the interplay between Brian Wilson's most creative period and his psychological disintegration, the late 1980s portion of the movie depicts both the pathos and the drama of Wilson's nadir and resurrection: Landy’s shameful appropriation of Brian’s life, fortune and career, and the effort it took to set Brian free. 

Paul Giamatti has played his share of bad guys over the years - it seems to be a subspecialty for him.  Dr. Gene Landy may be his sleaziest villain yet, with a performance ranging from quiet, almost charming duplicity to raging psychopathic monster.  Giamatti plays a somewhat similar character in this year’s Straight Outta Compton - as NWA’s manager, Jerry Heller - but where Heller was merely greedy, Landy is pure evil. While he did not cause Brian Wilson’s downfall – the mental illness and substance abuse long preceded Landy’s appearance on the scene – lordy, he sure took advantage, and once in control he would not let go.  Not willingly, at any rate.

Love and Mercy starts with Brian's meeting with Melinda and over the course of the movie paints a fascinating and moving portrait of their lovely, convoluted romance, and of her gutsy efforts on his behalf.  Melinda’s character may be bit too good to be true (or so it seemed to me); but Elizabeth Banks gives a fine, sympathetic and ultimately rousing performance that helps end Love and Mercy on a high note. (And with her warmth and beauty, she also has leaped onto my ever-expanding cinema girlfriend list.)

You don’t have to be a Beach Boys aficionado to like Love and Mercy.  But bits and pieces of many of Brian Wilson’s  most enchanting songs do fill out the soundtrack of this film. There’s an especially lovely bit where Paul Dano, as young Brian, touchingly sings the newly penned God Only Knows, accompanying himself on piano.  There’s another scene near the end of the movie where we see Wilson lying on his massive bed staring up at the ceiling; initially it’s middle aged Brian, but then it’s 23-year old Brian and then it’s Brian as a little kid, and then back up the age ladder; Brian envisions moments from throughout his troubled life and is integrating all that’s happened to him. The soundtrack is playing ‘Til I Die, an introspective song about uncertainty that Wilson and the Beach Boys recorded in 1966, with a repeated coda, “ These things I’ll be until I die, These things I’ll be until I die, … “ 

If you are not very familiar with this stuff, I imagine you may be won over.

121 minutes

Available streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, Xfinity OnDemand (pricey), and on DVD/Blue-ray from Netflix