Love & Mercy (2015)

Paul Giamatti is so creepy as the hack of a doctor Landy. He just does evil so well. Coincidentally, this is the second evil music producer he has played this year after Straight Outta Compton. The music is very different. It is less about lyrical genius and more about musical genius. Brian Wilson created complex layers of instrumentation. Paul Dano brilliantly and effectively plays a young Wilson who is just beginning to hear voices in his head. The studio scenes are incredible. They are shot on Super 16 handheld cameras documentary style. These are candid, intimate shots in the studio zooming in and out of Wilson instructing the musicians on the exact sounds he is trying to produce. He experiments with literal pet sounds, puts hairpins in the piano, and keeps his voice in the track. He has complete control over the studio, making sure that he achieves perfection. There is a shot of Wilson working with the cellist and the camera rotates to film the rest of the studio while the action takes place off camera. You hear it but you don't see it. This recurs in the film. The music naturally has a lot of sound mixing, and the sounds tell the story as much as the pictures do--such is the power of music.

The texture given to the young Wilson scenes contrast John Cusack's scenes of an older Wilson. The story jumps back and forth in an innovative approach to the biopic. And I like that different actors were cast to play the same man, like in the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There (also written by Oren Moverman). We primarily see the man under the care of Dr. Landry who has been suffering from his mental illness for many years. And in between there are glimpses of the younger Wilson, to remind the viewer of the genius that is being hidden by his illness. But here is the nuance, the illness inspires Wilson to write some of his most revolutionary and iconic music. The title Love & Mercy is a fitting one that is also one of his songs, without giving away too much. And the original song "One Kind of Love" written by Wilson for the film is very good. It was inexplicably left off the list of Oscar-eligible songs this year, though it might win the Golden Globe.