In 1966, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys composed and recorded the album Pet Sounds, a raw and vulnerable journey inside the musical genius of Wilson’s tortured mind. It is widely considered one of the best albums of all time and was the direct inspiration for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The biopic, Love & Mercy, artfully intercuts two eras in Wilson’s life. A young Wilson during the making of Pet Sounds is played by Paul Dano, while John Cusack portrays the troubled musician two decades later. In the early years, Wilson struggles with his desire to move away from the The Beach Boys’ saccharine surf and sun-themed songs in order to explore the deeper waters of his complex mind. The result was an epic experimentation in recording (accompanied by great amounts of LSD and other hallucinogens). Wilson, without much support from his bandmates or record label, became an obsessive maestro, bringing his vision to life with an orchestra that included everything from full string and wind sections to Coke cans and bicycle horns. The resulting album was underappreciated at the time and sent Wilson’s paranoid and drug addled mind hurling toward a nervous breakdown. Twenty years later, a fragile Wilson lives under the manipulative influence of his therapist (played by Paul Giamatti), as his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) fights to free Brian from the doctor’s unhealthy control. Wilson’s epic life story offers the audience a peek into his creative genius, and the sad reality of how difficult that gift can be. In theaters June 5.
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