Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, John Cusack, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Jake Abel, Dee Wallace, Kenny Wormald, Joanna Going, Max Schneider, Tyson Ritter, Erin Darke, Brett Davern, Graham Rogers, Wayne Bastrup, Diana Maria Riva, Nick Gehlfuss, Jonathan Slavin, Bill Camp, Johnny Sneed.
The strength of the biopic lays completely in its subject matter and how the director and writers wish to place empathy and sympathy down in the cinema-goers’ hearts. If treated with respect then the audience cannot help but come out of the cinema with the feeling of delving further into the subject’s life, in terms of music, it’s the assured way of driving the back catalogue sales through the roof for a while and for any fan of The Beach Boys, for the legendary Brian Wilson in particular, Love and Mercy, will have that desired effect.
One thing that stands out in the music biopic is the thought of control, whether too much in the wrong hands, especially in the almost grasping, seizing, manipulative hands of Dr. Eugene Landy, played with sublime consummate skill by Paul Giamatti or in the genius like thoughts of Brian Wilson, control is the most important factor when it comes to life.
That control though is finely balanced, in the realm of Brian Wilson’s slow mental breakdown and auditory hallucinations, it is what keep reality in check, the sounds that he hears that no one else manages to understand upon first listening are central to how the film and his life pans out; for how can the man be understood if the pain he is in is not seen for all its glory and suffering.
To take on such a role requires dedication and the offering of allegiance to the spirit of the soul, not easy perhaps in Brian Wilson, for the human being trapped in his own wall of sound and then the kind of nightmare that would buckle and destroy lesser men. However, this is what both Paul Dano as the younger man behind the incredible Pet Sounds album and John Cusack, arguably in his most enjoyable screen role since 2000’s High Fidelity, as the driven over the edge, near burned out musician and in the vice like grip of the soul sucking Dr. Eugene Levy, rise magnificently to the challenge presented them.
The life of one man might not amount to much, it might become twisted into fragmented memories and half remembered truths but for some, such as Brian Wilson, the life is so overwhelmingly impressive, with so much packed into place that not all of it can be told. Yet with that in mind what Love and Mercy manages to bestow upon the audience is the feeling of the complicate, of being a part of it all from start to finish and suffering the mental anguish of a modern day musical genius; some biopics really do care for their subject and make the audience love their heroes even more.
A tremendous film, Love and Mercy is a film in which to be enthralled and feel angry over in equal measure, a film that will come to be seen as timeless as the man’s music.
Ian D. Hall