In this Brian Wilson biopic, the one-time leader of the Beach Boys meets the woman of his dreams and leaves a note for her, which reads: “Lonely. Scared. Frightened.” No roses-are-red nonsense from Brian. As he once sang: “I keep looking for a place to fit in where I can speak my mind.” His mind took risks.
So does director Bill Pohlad. Our hero is played by Paul Dano and John Cusack, two actors who look nothing alike. Dano is twenty-something Wilson, trying to push the band into less sunny territory, earnestly dropping LSD and hearing voices for the first time. Cusack covers the Eighties years, when Wilson — now labelled a paranoid schizophrenic — had become the pampered prisoner of his volatile therapist (Paul Giamatti).
