David Thomas of Pere Ubu once remarked that every schoolboy should be taught the story of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. I’m not sure that I disagree. Like all tragedies, Wilson’s story has a lot to teach and enough drama to hook you on its twists and turns. Love the music or hate the music (and if you hate the music, I’m gonna need to see proof that you’re actually alive and human), the legend of Brian Wilson stands as a portrait of the troubled artist whose big vision got stomped on by men with much smaller visions—when his own mental problems weren’t in his way. The story is all the sweeter as time eventually vindicated the artist, but Wilson has had a hole in heart over some of this stuff for almost fifty years now. You can see it in his eyes.
This film version is a winner. It’s a lovely work that spends most of its time in the dark of Wilson’s head no matter how bright the California sun gets. Director Bill Pohlad tells a solid, coherent story while doing his damnedest to not give in completely to standard biopic emotional bombast. There’s a sincere joy in the scenes of Wilson in the studio creating Pet Sounds with the old LA Wrecking Crew and the film takes a likable risk by casting two actors in the lead role, each of whom gets seemingly equal screen time as the story fast forwards and rewinds back and forth throughout, filling in the enigma with artful intrique. A mop-topped Paul Dano gets the young 1960s genius Wilson; a dried-up John Cusack gets the 1980s basketcase Wilson. They barely look alike, but they (and Pohlad) sell us on it and I bought it. Also, Paul Giamatti’s Dr. Eugene Landy, Wilson’s money-siphoning quack doctor keeper during the low years, is as hateful as any other movie villain you’ll see this year.