Love and Mercy (2015 film) A Biopic about Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys

I haven't seen any threads or discussions on this here, and was wondering if anyone has seen this movie?



Just watched it the other day, and I enjoyed it. I've always been a huge Brian Wilson fan, I think he's one of the greatest songwriters in US history.

The film cuts back and forth between younger Brian (played by Paul Dano) in the midst of recording Pet Sounds in the mid 60's, and older Brian (John Cusack) dealing with his mental illness and the company of Dr. Eugene Landy.

 

didn't see it, but love Brian Wilson and consider him one of the great genius' in rock history. always thought Landy sold wilson a bill of goods and just wanted total control of the guy so made him think he was sicker than he really was.

 

geez,just looked up a wiki on landy, surprised how right i was as a 17 year old kid reading up on brian wilson. didn't know it all caught up to him.

 

Landy's name being attached to this classic is a travesty in itself.

 

I'm a huge Beach Boys/BW fan but I haven't seen it yet. The commercials really played up the Brian-Melinda romance, which seemed a bit cringeworthy. Maybe the commercials were edited to give that impression but the movie doesn't really focus on it--I don't know. But if they do play it up, I don't know how I'd like that. It seems that Melinda has been good for Brian, regardless of her intentions, so I don't harbor any ill will towards her, but I don't know if I can buy their relationship as much of a romance. Also, she's his current wife and heavily involved with his brand, so I'm guessing anything in the movie involving her is heavily sanitized.

I want to know if Mike Love comes off as a dick in the movie. If not, then it's a completely inaccurate piece of crap.

Before Youtube got rid of the "top commments" format, I used to be the top one. My 15 minutes of fame. Lol.

And yes, Landy worming his way onto that masterpiece is ridiculous. Even moreso than Mike Love glomming onto lots of Brian's creations in the 60s.

BTW, I heard the best way to describe the bridge in L&M on a BB forum a few years ago: the "Wall of Brians."

 

Saw it opening day and really enjoyed it.

I wasn't thrilled with the casting other than Paul Dano which nailed it but everyone acted well and the story was pretty accurate to real life events.

Casting is really the only thing that hurt it. It bothers me that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys are known as a goofy surfing group from the 60s when they really should be as respected as the Beatles are in the states.

If you liked Straight Outta Compton, watch Love & Mercy. They are very similar movies.

 

some reason, i just thought it may also have been a put on by brian himself when he said he heard voices coming from miles away, I just instinctively thought that he couldn't have been that sick and still function or even give a coherent interview. It was a long time ago though, i think 85 when i read that interview in rolling stone, i just had a feeling they were both wilson and landy to get some publicity for a comeback. just my impression at the time. Either way, one of the true creative greats of rock and roll and the inspiring force behind sgt. peppers. had to be really stifling to be one genius amongst a group of normal musicians though, at least the beatles could all come up with something great at one time or another, poor guy was alone.

 

I agree that Dano was wonderful. Everyone else was kind of "meh", Cusack wasn't that great. But Paul Dano did an amazing job at playing Wilson in the 60's. Even Brian himself said that Paul was good.



Dano's version of God Only Knows.

 

Have you read his Reddit AMA? It's good stuff.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/2zmbsv/i_am_brian_wilson_cofounder_of_the_beach_boys_amaa/

I always love this one story that Alice Cooper tells of Brian Wilson meeting John Lennon:

 

wow, that's pretty bizarre. did they talk about manson in the film? that's pretty crazy too, who was it who brought that fucker by? Dennis? Some people think mansons music is actually pretty good, I listened to a bit and just thought it was run of the mill 60's music.

 

I thought Cusack actually did a really good job. He got Brian's posture, voice and nuances down. The big problem is he looked nothing like Brian.

Cusack and Elizabeth Banks were disgusting Hollywood choices for the roles. Even though they weren't crucial to the story, Dennis, Al and Carl were virtually unrecognizable. Mike was pretty good at least.

I just wish they would have went for people that looked closer to the parts.

 

They don't mention the Manson stuff. That's confidential lockdown stuff that they all refused to talk about afterwards.

But in the AMA, someone asks Brian how it was being on Full House, and Wilson replies "I was never on Full House." being completely serious, to which others showed him video footage and IMDB stuff to prove that he was. It was really funny, but sad at the same time.

 

ya, i'm watching a recent interview with him now, he's definitely got some problems. Probably related directly to the drugs, i think most schizophrenics,males anyway, crack up at 18 or so, a guy cracking up later probably is made that way from brain tampering drugs. I had a cousin who i've heard is schizophrenic now, he wasn't when he was 20 to 30 or so,haven't seen him in years but i know he was involved with a lot of crap.

 

Manson was more of a Dennis thing. This movie is more about Brian's life story and doesn't get too much into the Beach Boys.

There's a Beach Boys movie called "Summer Dreams" which goes into it a bit. Dennis was hanging out at parties where Charlie was at and became interested in his music. Later, Dennis recorded a song called "Never Learn Not to Live" which apparently was originally a Manson song. Dennis didn't credit Charlie for the song and later he threatened to murder him for it.

It's a pretty awful movie but the story is fairly accurate.

 

It was originally called Cease to Exit. Afterwards, the Beach Boys rewrote and re-arranged the song to be Never Learn Not to Live.

 

ok, I don't know nearly as much about the lives of the beach boys as I do about some of my other heroes but love the music. even wrote one of my songs base on their music, i always thought it was one of my best but no one else seemed to feel that way.

 

I was always more of a Beatles and Lennon/McCartney kid growing up, they're still my number 1 of all time. But the thing is, all four of the Beatles were extremely talented songwriters, and they had George Martin (the 5th Beatle imo) as a producer who could play almost every instrument, and help arrange some of their more intricate songs. Brian Wilson was completely alone in that regard, and the rest of the band thought he was crazy. Lennon and McCartney didn't get any hesitation from the rest of the group until 68/69.

 

ya, the beatles were way more prolific and influential, even them though, for some reason, probably because i'm a solo artist, i never got too into the actual biographies of bands. just the solo artists.

 

Mike Love comes off as a prick, or atleast the only one always arguing with Brian. Brian's brothers Carl and Dennis usually go along with whatever Brian has in mind, they agree with him and don't see the big deal, but Mike is always like "lets do surf songs! yeah!" and said Pet Sounds is too sad.

The Cusack/Banks scenes, I didn't care for too much. It is definitely the romance subplot, and I mean, she helped him a bunch with getting rid of Landy, it adds to the story and Melinda had more of a hand in the movie than Brian did, but I was more interested in seeing the making of Pet Sounds through hollywood's eyes. All of Dano's scenes are great, it's almost like two separate movies intertwined.

 

The Beatles (and more specifically, John Lennon) caused Brian Wilson to have a massive mental break down during their competitive years. A Day in the Life is said to be what Brian Wilson was so desperately trying to achieve with Pet Sounds and Smile, and when he first heard it he broke down saying "He got there first."