leethomas-11621 Fascinating story of Brian Wilson and his mental health issues. Let down by its pacing. Otherwise a wonderful movie.

lmabadie I enjoyed the early Beach Boys parts of the story and I wished they had been longer. Paul Dano made a great job as the young Brian Wilson and those parts of the movie were very good. I also wished there had been more of their early music and the group beginnings and rise to fame, maybe exploring better the conflict relationship with their father. The later parts of the story were not of the same level. John Cusak was a poor casting for the role of the older Brian WIlson. There is nothing likable about his character and it was difficult to see what made his future wife get attracted to him, other than his bank account. It is the victors who write the history books, or in this case they are the ones that will sell the rights to the movie and control how some character, including themselves will be depicted. Maybe I am totally wrong about this, I have no way to know, but the important thing is that this is the way the movie made me feel while watching it, that it was a struggle about who would control Brian Wilson fortunes.

evanston_dad "Love & Mercy" thankfully avoids the pitfalls that plague most other blah biopics, eschewing the device of taking us through the troubled childhood up through the inspirational finale of whatever famous person's life happens to be the film's subject. While Brian Wilson is the main subject of the film, the movie isn't so much about him as it about his contributions to the Beach Boys' phenomenal success as a band. We don't learn his life story; we witness instead how one of the most troubled passages of his personal life coincided with one of the most fertile period for the group. However, while I was relieved that this didn't end up being a paint by numbers biopic like every other biopic put to screen, I did feel like the filmmakers didn't quite know how to fill the gap where a different movie would have inserted all of the traditional biopic material. Paul Dano and John Cusack give fine performances as the young and older, respectively, Brian Wilson, but there isn't a lot of story to tell here, certainly not enough to warrant the film's 2+ hour running time. The film is at its best when it's depicting the jam sessions during which Wilson came up with some of the Beach Boys' most iconic tunes, but the parts of the film that chronicle the tug-of-war between Wilson's girlfriend (played likeably by Elizabeth Banks) and his doctor (played loathsomely by Paul Giammati) turn into a slog, and unfortunately these make up the bulk of the movie.And it's odd that a movie about the Beach Boys would feature so little of their music.Grade: B+

SquigglyCrunch Love & Mercy follows Brian Wilson, a member of the Beach Boys band in the past, when he struggles with being in a band and develops mental illness, and in the future when poor caretakers and his illness affects his new-found love life. The plot is one that I think many people would be interested in. I myself never listened to the Beach Boys, but I know lot's of people did. With a story like this I think it would interest a lot of people. Fortunately, I like stories about mentally ill people, so this movie still caught my attention. The way the story is presented is really great, with it switching back and forth between two different time periods. It doesn't ever show too little of one time period, and both are very interesting. The characters are pretty great. John Cusack especially does a great job as Brian Wilson, but Paul Dano is equally, if not more, fantastic. Everyone else is very good in their roles, but these two in particular stood out. The characters themselves are interesting too, and they feel pretty real for the most part. My only real complaint about this movie is that it could be a little slow. Maybe that's because I watched it late at night, or maybe not. Either way, it didn't always hold my complete attention. Overall Love & Mercy is fantastic. The cast is great, the characters are great, it's presented in an interesting way and is just an interesting story in general. It suffers from being a little slow, but otherwise it's a fantastic movie. In the end I would certainly recommend this movie.