What's the Consensus on Love & Mercy (2014) a Decade Later?

[Lonely Summer]

I could never accept John Cusak as Brian, and I don't believe Melinda was as saintly as she's presented in the film. They put way too much emphasis on her, and not enough about Carl taking the steps to get Landy out of the picture.
The other complaint I have about the 80's half of the picture is, you get no sense that Brian was actively writing and recording new music here. It's like he did Pet Sounds, Smile, and then stopped.

The 60's half of the movie is great, I just wish there was more of it.

I agree 100% with this. After the unbelievable impersonation by Dano, where I kept forgetting that he was not really Brian, Cusack was just so different, so NOT Brian.
Carl was shortchanged, like all the other Beach Boys really.
And ignoring that Brian was still writing and recording, that was LAME. In my book, unforgivable, because it feeds, powerfully, into that hideous myth that Brian was totally shot after 1967.

Maybe I'm biased, because I remember the long wait for Brian's first solo album. When it was finally released, it was like manna from heaven to me. I still love it, 80's trappings and all, it proved that Brian still had 'it'.

[rab2591]

The 80s part of the movie does mention that Brian is recording BW88 (not by name, but if memory serves correct I think Landy or one of Landy’s guys tells Melinda that Brian can’t see her anymore due to Brian needing to focus on writing and recording the “new album”). Also, the song that weaves through the 80s section (and it’s the movie’s title) is the opener of BW88. So without directly mentioning the album the movie does make it clear that Brian was working on an album/music then.

As a huge fan of BW88, I think that hearing some of that production on theater speakers would be a dream come true, and that the album is proof that Brian absolutely still “had it” and such an accomplishment should’ve been noted. On the flip side, as a huge fan of films in general I can totally see why the filmmakers didn’t include the album directly into the film: they keep the storyline simple by showing Brian’s greatest album (‘Pet Sounds’), then his greatest song (‘Good Vibrations’), then juxtapositioning that with his greatest known tragedy (‘Smile’) then by using love as the inspiration to create his greatest solo song (‘Love and Mercy’) he is in time able to go back and resurrect/rectify his greatest tragedy (‘Smile’). If you add the totality of BW88 to that it would’ve muddied the simplicity of the story and been confusing to the general audience.

Having said all that, and realizing that Love and Mercy will likely be the greatest Beach Boys related motion picture we ever get, my dream will always be for HBO to do a miniseries that delves into the entire life of this band (from the very beginning, to Pacific Ocean Blue, the obsession with Shortenin Bread, the almost 007 lengths Brian had to go to record parts of BW88, to the very ‘end’). The entire story, battle scars and all, doesn’t need any sugar-coating or fairy-tale ending. Their story is the perfect microcosm of the American Dream, of the depths of evil, to the heights of love. Their story is of brotherhood and revenge, how complicated love can be, of how frail and strung out the human mind/soul can get, but also how through love and resilience you can knit that frailty into strength to carry on. Enveloping it all is the harmony of music. Like come on HBO: that’s a goldmine! Plus, we’d probably get some spinoffs including an 8 part series on the rise, fall, and redemption of ‘Waves of Love’