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Love & Mercy

Love & Mercy is a 2014 American biographical drama film directed by Bill Pohlad about the Beach Boys' co-founder and leader Brian Wilson and his struggles with mental illness during the 1960s and 1980s. It stars Paul Dano and John Cusack as the young and middle-aged Wilson, respectively, with Elizabeth Banks as his second wife Melinda Ledbetter and Paul Giamatti as his psychologist Dr. Eugene Landy. The title comes from Wilson's 1988 song.

Plot

The film alternates between the 1960s and the 1980s. The early timeline begins with a young Brian Wilson suffering a panic attack on an airplane. After recovering, Brian convinces his brothers Carl and Dennis to let him quit touring with the Beach Boys and instead focus on composition and studio work. Despite his father and his cousin Mike Love's criticisms regarding the lyrics and production, Brian completes the Pet Sounds album. It is a critical hit, but sales are underwhelming. LSD is supplied to Wilson by a coterie of hippies who praise him as a "genius", and his mental health subsequently worsens. After the success of a new single, "Good Vibrations", he fails to complete the album Smile, his would-be masterpiece. As Wilson's bandmates are left to finish a simplified version of the album, now titled Smiley Smile, he learns that his father has sold the publishing rights to the Beach Boys' songs without their consent. This timeline ends with Wilson apathetic and detached from life.