|
|
Love & Mercy
2015 MSPIFF CLOSING PRESENTATION RETURNS
Love & Mercy is an intimate and unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the enigmatic singer, songwriter and co-founder of the Beach Boys. Set against Wilson's groundbreaking, era-defining music, the film examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of a cultural icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost.
Directed by Bill Pohlad and made with the full cooperation of the musician and his wife, Love & Mercy offers a never-before-seen glimpse of Wilson, the boy genius who co-wrote such ebullient pop hits as "Surfer Girl" and "Fun, Fun, Fun" and the game-changing masterpieces "Good Vibrations" and "God Only Knows" before disappearing from the public eye for years. Actors Paul Dano and John Cusack share the role of the troubled musical virtuoso who defined the "California sound" with sumptuous harmonies and visions of endless summers of surf and sand.
Spanning more than three decades of Wilson's life, the film reveals the darker and more complex story that lies beneath the music's sun-kissed surface, including Wilson's battle with mental illness and drug abuse, his years under the influence of therapist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) and his redemptive relationship with Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), all in the context of his unparalleled musicianship.
"In its best moments, 'Love & Mercy' hovers in the same fragile space as the music." - Eric Kohn, Indiewire
"Paul Dano and John Cusack both do sterling work as the two halves of this broken soul, drawing us in and making us care." - Drew McWeeny, HitFix
"[The film] balances a genuine celebration of Wilson’s creative genius with a compassionate view of the inner voices that made him hear what no one else did." - Colin Covert, Star Tribune
"A wonderfully innervating cure for the common musical biopic." - Andrew Barker, Variety
"The picture would be exciting even if all it offered was the vision of Paul Dano's Wilson guiding musicians through the creation of Pet Sounds; but as the older Wilson, John Cusack gives one of the best performances of his career." - John DeFore, THR
“If this is the kind of work he’s capable and interested in making, we can only hope that Pohlad is already queuing up a brand new cinematic opus." - Kate Erbland, Film School Rejects
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Director Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy tells the astonishing story of the former choirboy’s evolution to legendary pop icon in an unconventional, illuminating and poignant film from producers Pohlad, John Wells and Claire Rudnick Polstein.
“I don’t much like biopics as a genre,” says Pohlad. “Trying to fit all the beats of a lifetime into two hours doesn’t interest me. I wanted to get into the real human aspects of Brian Wilson’s life, not his celebrity. The movie is a portrait of a real person. Some great stuff has happened to him, as well as some not-so-great stuff, but to approach it in the traditional way was not going to work.”
Almost a decade in the making, Love & Mercy reveals the little-known, behind-the-scenes drama that unfolded as the young musician began to explore the depths of his prodigious talent while battling deep- seated insecurities and psychological distress. “The film tries to get deep inside Brian and examine what drove him,” says Pohlad. “Over the years, I have been drawn more and more to the brilliance of Brian’s music, especially ‘Pet Sounds,’ but even more than the music, it was his struggles and what he’s been through that attracted me to this project"...
DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
BILL POHLAD (Director & Producer), an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, has been producing quality films for more than two decades. As founder and CEO of River Road Entertainment, his ability to seek out compelling material and bring it to light has established his reputation as a filmmaker unafraid to take creative risks.
After starting out as a writer-director in the late 1980s, Pohlad has spent most of the last 15 years producing. His credits include the Academy Award-winning Best Picture 12 Years a Slave, which also won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama, two BAFTA Awards including Best Film, five Film Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature, and a total of three Academy Awards. His producing effort The Tree of Life was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture. The feature also won the Palme d’Or at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival and shared the prize for Best Feature at the 2011 Gotham Independent Film Awards. In 2007 Pohlad produced Sean Penn’s award-winning adaptation of Into the Wild, based on the best-selling book by Jon Krakauer. The film earned two Academy Award nominations, as well as nods from the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild and SAG, among others.
Pohlad has also served as executive producer on numerous films including Ang Lee’s Academy Award-winning epic Brokeback Mountain. He has also produced a number of feature documentaries including Robert Kenner’s Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc.
Currently in production, Pohlad re-teams with director Sean Penn on The Last Face, which stars Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron.
Pohlad wrote, directed and co-produced his first feature film, Old Explorers, starring veteran actors José Ferrer and James Whitmore, in 1990. He has also directed and produced a number of commercial and documentary film projects over the years.
|