Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Head music
Today's film tries really hard to be too many things.
First and foremost it is the story of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and his rise to stardom then his fall to depression and mental illness.
It is a great anthology of Beach Boys music with some bits of "how they did it" interspersed. It is a two level film with Wilson played young by Paul Dano and older by John Cusack.
I think this is where it begins to fail in its intentions.
The two are not alike and so the viewer must fill in the blanks. Or the dissonance. They also have distinctly different acting styles.
I like both men and that is one of the main reasons I wanted to see this film but the duality and failure to make it work is its downfall.
I did watch it all the way through with only a little FF but that still makes it a 2 out of Netflix5. Too bad. Such great promise.
The NYTimes review at the link loves the movie. I differ.
Labels: films
