Love & Mercy (2015) on Netflix
In the 1960s, Brian Wilson quits touring to record Pet Sounds, and his mind begins to slip. In the 1980s, under Dr. Eugene Landy's control, he meets Cadillac saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.4/1046,112 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Brian Wilson, co-founder and leader of the Beach Boys, lives his story in two periods. In the 1960s, after a panic attack on a plane, he talks his brothers Carl and Dennis into letting him leave the road and concentrate on writing and recording. His father Murry and his cousin Mike Love criticize the lyrics and the production, but he finishes the album Pet Sounds, which the critics praise and record buyers largely ignore. Two decades later, heavily medicated, he meets Melinda Ledbetter, a Cadillac saleswoman, and she is disturbed by how completely his therapist, Dr. Eugene Landy, controls his daily life.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Love & Mercy (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Long before Love & Mercy, a film about Brian Wilson's life was first proposed in 1988, with William Hurt set to star as Wilson and Richard Dreyfuss as Landy.
- Melinda Ledbetter said after watching the film that what Landy did to Brian was even worse than the movie shows, happening on a daily basis for years.
- The film's studio scenes were shot in the actual studios where the Beach Boys recorded in the 1960s, including the Studio 3-room at EastWest Studios, then known as United Western Recorders, using real musicians as the session players.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman was considered for the film's older-Wilson "Brian present" role, the guy in bed who became the John Cusack era.
- John Cusack was cast as the older Brian Wilson after director Bill Pohlad watched Don Was' 1995 documentary I Just Wasn't Made for These Times.
- Every 1960s recording-studio scene was shot in Super 16, while the 1980s scenes were given a cold white and blue cast instead of a warm, romantic look.
- Cinematographer Robert Yeoman was kept out of rehearsals so he never knew what was coming, and fly-on-the-wall documentaries Sympathy for the Devil and Let It Be were used as references.
