The first trailer for the new Brian Wilson biopic dropped recently. Love & Mercy will highlight the iconic singer-songwriter's time with The Beach Boys as well as his period of mental unrest, creative struggle and eventual return to music. The movie was shown for the first time at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and is slated for a screening at South by Southwest in March. Lions Gate will release the biopic worldwide June 5, Billboard noted.
Paul Dano -- looking much like the singer -- portrays Wilson in his earlier life in the trailer below. The first few shots show The Beach Boys performing hits like "I Get Around" before Wilson starts to obsess over the making of Pet Sounds. Paul Giamatti, who plays the controversial therapist Dr. Eugene Landy in the film, explains that Wilson is a "sick man" as Dano transforms into an older version of the musician, played by John Cusack. Check out the trailer below.
Props to casting directors Paul Schnee and Kerry Barden for grabbing Dano, an up-and-comer whose recent credits include 12 Years a Slave and Prisoners. Cusack can bring it whenever he needs to, and Giamatti was a brilliant choice for Landy, who ultimately leads Wilson astray. Elizabeth Banks will have to up her game as the love interest and eventual wife of Wilson, Melinda Ledbetter, who helps bring the creative genius into the second chapter of his career.
Love & Mercy takes its name from the lead single of Wilson's 1988 self-titled album -- Landy is actually credited as a co-writer on the track. He has gone on to make nine additional solo albums, including the 2004 masterpiece Brian Wilson Presents Smile, which was originally intended to follow up The Beach Boys's Pet Sounds until it was shelved.
Rolling Stone gave the album five out of five stars.
"Wilson's voice has deepened and coarsened irreparably," Robert Christgau wrote about the album. "Although he hits the notes, he can't convey the innocence Smile's content seems to demand. But he can convey commitment and belief -- belief that his young bonkers self composed a work that captured possibilities now nearly lost to history. Smile proves that those possibilities are still worth pursuing."
