You can’t throw a guitar without hitting a music biopic, but making a movie about the life of Brian Wilson presents a special challenge. How do you present a movie about one of pop music’s most influential songwriters, whose creative genius led to genuine madness? "Love & Mercy" mostly succeeds in answering that challenge, and first trailer is here.
Director Bill Pohlad wisely has two actors play Wilson: Paul Dano as the younger, hitmmaking musician and John Cusack plays the older, mentally troubled star. The movie that cuts back and forth between the two poles of his life, while detailing how he finally managed to find love and to come out from under the thumb of the controlling influences around him. Overall, the movie has "nary a beat out of place" as my review from TIFF last fall put it.
"Love & Mercy" opens on June 5th. Watch below.