Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Love & Mercy Blu-ray Movie Review

Surf's up.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 7, 2015

A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along
To a handsome man and baton
A blind class aristocracy
Back through the opera glass you see
The pit and the pendulum drawn
Columnated ruins domino

Despite (or maybe because of) the fact that I grew up for the most part in Utah’s largest burg, where The Beach Boys' specialty tune “Salt Lake City” played virtually nonstop on good old AM radio every summer during my childhood, I never really appreciated the iconic American group until somewhat later in their careers and my life. A little voice told me to pick up Holland and Surf’s Up one day when I was in my high school years, and I was, in a word, hooked. My English teacher at the time had been having us analyze various pop song lyrics, going into great detail on such offerings as the “Canticle” part of Simon and Garfunkel’s version of “Scarborough Fair”, and being absolutely intrigued both lyrically and musically by the title tune of Surf’s Up, a collaboration between Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, I took the lyric to her to see what she thought about it. She kept it for a day or two and returned it to me, stating with a bit of sheepishness, “I have absolutely no idea what it means,” which frankly made two of us. Brian is on record (no pun intended) as stating that “Surf’s Up”'s enigmatic lyric is completely the handiwork of Van Dyke Parks, but its stream of consciousness depiction of old eons falling away and an almost musical analog to the Starchild of 2001: A Space Odyssey being born could certainly be seen as an apt portrayal of Wilson’s own roiling psyche. While Brian’s diagnosis of being schizophrenic is now disputed (or at least modified), Love and Mercy has its own perhaps appropriately schizoid structure in play as it offers a simultaneous unfolding of two epochal eras in Wilson’s life—his heyday in the 1960s, especially as he was involved in recording such iconic tunes as “God Only Knows” and "Good Vibrations", and later as a shadow of his former self in the 1980s, under the care of the Svengali like Dr. Eugene Landy.

Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping?

In the mid-sixties, Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) is high (in more ways than one) with success, having written many of The Beach Boys’ most iconic tunes. In fact, Brian wants nothing more than simply to write, hoping to divorce himself from the touring and performing sides of being in a working band in order to create "the greatest album of all time" (Pet Sounds). His brothers Dennis (Kenny Wormald) and Carl (Brett Davern) ultimately agree, especially after Brian seems to experience a panic attack and, later, admits to hearing voices in his head. Left to his own devices, though with occasional discomfiting interchanges with the boys’ martinet father Murry (Bill Camp), Brian, along with a little help from “maryjane” and “love, surrender, devotion” starts experimenting with various techniques in the studio, along with expanding his already virtuosic harmonic sense. While Murry is typically dismissive, Brian’s stalwart studio musicians (which included the iconic Wrecking Crew) are suitably impressed.

Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn
The music hall is a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumpeter's swan
Columnated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?

In the 1980s, Brian (John Cusack), now ravaged from what is perhaps (or perhaps not) incipient mental illness as well as those aforementioned uses of weed and acid, is under the constant care of a new martinet, one as emotionally demanding as his father was in days of yore. Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) has a “take no prisoners” approach toward therapy, or perhaps more accurately “take Brian prisoner”, as he keeps his charge under 24-7 guard and seemingly has to approve each and every decision Brian makes. Brian, out shopping for a new car, wanders into a Cadillac dealership and is immediately taken with pretty salesgirl Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), though Melinda herself soon figures out that her ostensible love relationship with Brian is going to be a triangle of sorts, since Landy is there, front and center, approving (or disapproving) whatever Brian wants, and even going so far as to corner Melinda and give her pointers on how the relationship is to proceed.

Dove nested towers the hour was
Strike the street quicksilver moon
Carriage across the fog
Two step to lamp lights cellar tune
The laughs come hard in auld lang syne

The glass was raised, the fired rose
The fullness of the wine, the dim last toasting
While at port adieu or die

The narrative gambit undertaken by Michael Alan Lerner and Oren Moverman’s screenplay (adapting Lerner’s original version Heroes and Villains) is consistently fascinating, though the two timelines don’t necessarily inform each other as the scenarists perhaps intended. Instead the two eras play out as separate entities, linked of course by their shared characters but perhaps unavoidably detached from feeling like an organic whole. Dano resembles the real life Wilson much more so than Cusack does, a flaw that would probably be more problematic if it weren’t ameliorated so successfully by such viscerally intense performances.

A choke of grief haeart hardened I
Beyond belief a borken man too tough to cry

In fact the bifurcated structure of Love and Mercy might have come off as nothing other than a mere gimmick were it not for the uniform excellence of the performances. While Dano and Cusack are obviously front and center and command the lion’s share of the attention, it’s probably Giamatti’s machinating Landy who ends up being the most unforgettable character in the film. Landy’s legacy is hotly disputed to this day, but Giamatti portrays him as a kind of power mad obsessive whose own psychological “issues” seem to affect his treatment (and/or treatments) of Brian (and to a lesser extent Melinda). Banks is unusually expressive in her role, nicely modulating Melinda’s evolution from a kind of gobsmacked bystander into an advocate for Brian’s rights.

Surf's up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children's song

That reference above to the Starchild of Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece may not be quite as fanciful (or outlandish) as it may initially seem, at least as evidenced by a key sequence late in Love & Mercy which seems designed specifically to evoke the “Ages of Man” segment that astronaut Dave experiences on his way to rebirth. Here instead of a hulking monolith, Brian’s consciousness is confronted by any number of timeframes, with various people from his past and present colliding in a cathartic display that seems to indicate if memories can’t be completely evaded, a psychological détente of sorts is at least possible that will allow Brian to be, in a paraphrased form of a song initially intended for Holland, carried home.

Child is the father of the man

Love & Mercy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Love and Mercy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As director Bill Pohlad mentions in the interesting commentary track included on this Blu-ray, since Brian was such "an analog guy" in the recording studio, the decision was made to shoot this entry on film, and on a number of different stocks, at that. There are clear delineations between the grainy, fuzzy and at times intentionally raggedy looking 16mm sequences and the much sleeker looking 35mm moments, but perhaps surprisingly, the overall look of Love and Mercy is surprisingly homogenous. Various tweaks have been made at times, especially to some of the 16mm footage, with various colors boosted (or in fact desaturated) and some other bells and whistles applied to the imagery that can at a times detract from detail levels, as in a quasi-hallucinatory sequence (involving Surf's Up, as a matter of fact) that has Brian and the Wrecking Crew all wearing firemen's hats as he madly marauds through a recording session. When not intentionally altered, the palette is fresh and vibrant looking, with elements like the bright blue dress Melinda is wearing during her initial meeting with Brian popping with incredible immediacy. Detail and fine detail tend to be a bit clearer and better resolved in the 35mm sequences, as should perhaps be expected (especially with some of the intentional "distressing" done to the 16mm sequences), but overall things look nicely sharp and well defined throughout this presentation.

Love & Mercy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Love and Mercy features an extremely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that offers substantial surround activity in any number of audio montages crafted by Atticus Ross out of snippets of various Beach Boys and Wilson material. These were assembled to recreate something of the maelstrom of sounds Brian himself has talked about experiencing, and they often feature very cool sounding wafts of tunes panning evocatively through the side or rear channels. The relatively brief moments of pure music, as in the recreations of some of the recording sessions, also offer excellent separation and clarity. Dialogue is always cleanly and clearly presented and is well prioritized. Fidelity is excellent throughout this problem free track.

Love & Mercy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Commentary with Bill Pohlad (Director/Producer) and Oren Moverman (Executive Producer/Co-Writer). This is a nicely conversational but generally very informative piece that finds the contributors talking about everything from filming techniques to story structures, to the risky choice to cast two actors to play the same part, to some of the challenges of dramatizing lives of people who are still around to see the results and potentially not be happy with the presentation.


• A California Story: Creating the Look of Love & Mercy (1080p; 10:48) focuses on aspects of production design, including having to recreate some iconic Beach Boys performances.


• A Side/B Side: Portraying the Life of Brian Wilson (1080p; 25:31) is a really good auxiliary piece to the film, offering good interviews and some archival footage of Brian.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 7:27)

Love & Mercy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Love and Mercy has a few elisions that may grate on longtime Beach Boys' fans, but as Pohlad and Moverman mention in their commentary, this really isn't a Beach Boys movie, but a Brian Wilson movie. As such, Brian's story itself is redacted fairly heavily, but the decision to focus on two key eras in his life results in a unique (if refracted) perspective that gives Love and Mercy a very distinctive appeal. Performances are simply magnificent and I'd frankly be a little shocked if none of the principal players receive Academy Award nominations next year, with my firmest bet on Giamatti's unforgettable Landy. Technical merits are generally first rate, the supplements are fine, and Love and Mercy comes Highly recommended.